The first moving images of a black hole could reveal swirls of plasma and collapsing stars, deepening our understanding of the universe.

New research suggests that we may be vastly underestimating the number of black holes that existed in the early universe, which could help answer a big question in cosmology. As detailed in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters,

Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Robert Oppenheimer, Karl Schwarzschild, John Wheeler, Albert Einstein, Leonard Susskind – these renowned scientists all, in one way or another, helped black holes

SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE are ravenous black holes that pull gas, dust, light and even other black holes into their maw, never to be seen again. Like a riptide pulling swimmers out to sea, the gravity inside a black hole pulls matter past a point of no return,