When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.2025 was a big year for black holes. | Credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)Black holes are arguably the most fascinating entities in the whole realm of science — these are regions in the fabric of spacetime that surround an infinitely dense, infinitesimally small point of mass and exert a gravitational force so strong that not even light can escape their grips.It is therefore no surprise that just as black holes grip light (and everything else, for that matter) they grip the attention of scientists and the general public, too. And 2025 has been no exception, with the year bringing forth some intriguing and jaw-dropping scientific breakthroughs regarding these cosmic titans.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo, as we prepare for 2026 and the scientific advances it will deliver, Space.com presents you with some of our favorite black hole advances announced over the last 12 months.1. James Webb Space Telescope spots rapidly feeding “little red dot”An illustration shows the JWST in space next to its observations of some of the earliest galaxies ever seen, the so-called “little red dots.” | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Dale Kocevski (Colby College)/ Robert Lea (created with Canva)In November, astronomers revealed they used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to discover a voraciously feeding and rapidly growing supermassive black hole in the infant universe. Existing just 570 million years after the Big Bang, this black hole sits at the heart of the galaxy CANUCS-LRD-z8.6, a so-called “little red dot” galaxy, or a class of small, bright and extremely distant objects the JWST has been routinely discovering since it began observations in 2022″This discovery is truly remarkable. We’ve observed a galaxy from less than 600 million years after the Big Bang, and not only is it hosting a supermassive black hole, but the black hole is growing rapidly — far faster than we would expect in such a galaxy at this early time,” discovery team leader Roberta Tripodi of the University of Ljubljana FMF in Slovenia said in a statement at the time. “This challenges our understanding of black hole and galaxy formation in the early universe and opens up new avenues of research into how these objects came to be.”Read more about CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 and its supermassive black hole inhabitant here.2. This black hole is a runaway!Runaway supermassive black hole flees the Cosmic Owl galaxies leaving a trail of stars | Credit: Li et al/ Robert Lea (created with Canva)Sticking with the JWST, in December, astronomers used the $10 billion space telescope to confirm the first sighting of a runaway supermassive black hole. This cosmic titan weighs in at 10 million times the mass of the sun and is rocketing through space at a staggering 2.2 million miles per hour (3.5 million kilometers per hour), which is 3,000 times the speed of sound at sea level here on Earth.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe runaway supermassive black hole is pushing forward a literal galaxy-size “bow-shock” of matter in front of it, as well as dragging a 200,000 light-year-long tail behind it that is gathering gas and actively birthing stars.”It boggles the mind!” discovery team leader Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University told Space.com. “The forces that are needed to dislodge such a massive black hole from its home are enormous. And yet, it was predicted that such esc …
