They’re as unending as they are inescapable, and these are two of the factors that make black holes – the bizarre astrophysical phenomenon whereupon everything that passes the event horizon both cannot escape and essentially gets turned into infinite spaghetti – quite scary.

Thankfully from the position we occupy on Earth, we’re not vulnerable to any black holes, with the closest (Gaia BH1) being over 1,500 light years away.

And as a result we can observe and hypothesise about them with just the appropriate amount of trepidation.

Across our planet, there are many, many individuals doing just that – and thanks to a recent study from an international team of researchers, we’ve recently gained a better understanding of black holes than ever before.

In the study, the physicists used a telescope on a huge balloon known as XL-Calibur to observe a black hole – Cygnus X-1 – which is roughly 7,000 light years away from Earth (and thus, notoriously difficult to observe).

The hugely advanced telescope balloon was intended to comprehend the direction of vibrations in the electromagnetic field of the black hole, through one means which humans can observe – the polarization of light – as researcher Ephraim Gau explained in a statement:

“If we try to find Cyg X-1 in the sky, we’d be looking for a really tiny point of X-ray light. Polarization is thus useful for learning about all the stuff happening around the black hole when we can’t take normal pictures from Earth.”

And the results of the study, which were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal were groundbreaking.

By gathering the data, the researchers not only contributed the most comprehensive observations of Cygnus X-1 yet, they also proved the effectiveness of XL-Calibur. And their results are just the beginning as researcher Henric Krawczynski continued:

“The observations we made will be used by scientists to test increasingly realistic, state-of-the-art computer simulations of physical processes close to the black hole.”

Meanwhile, the team’s next experiment intends to take flight from Antarctica in 2027, to gather more information about black holes and neutron stars.

With this gradually accumulating picture of black holes, the research team hope to unpick some of the many mysteries surrounding these ominous parts of space.

If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.