It’s Becoming Clear Why Black Holes Never Run Out of Fuel

James Webb Space Telescope observations of NGC 4696 show that an S-shaped gas feature in its center is a rotating disk around a supermassive black hole.

Cool gas filaments are feeding into the disk, creating a recycling loop that supplies fresh fuel to the black hole.

Simulations suggest magnetic fields help drive the gas inward by stripping away angular momentum.

The findings help explain how supermassive black holes keep growing and how they shape star formation and galaxy evolution.