Lifeboat Foundation

Some 275 million light-years from the Milky Way lies a true cosmic mystery.

There, in the heart of a galaxy named 1ES 1927+654, squats a supermassive black hole whose monkeyshines and hijinks have baffled astronomers for years.

Now, we might finally have an explanation for at least some of its wild misbehavior: an orbiting white dwarf star veering precariously close to the brink of the black hole’s event horizon, the point beyond which no matter can ever return.