This is what an erupting supermassive black hole looks like

by **Josh "Spikey00" Y.** Mon Aug 23, 2010 2:40 pm

Out in what's known as the Virgo A galaxy is a black hole that's six billion times larger than our sun. That makes it a pretty good target for astronomers, who used the Chandra X-ray telescope and the Very Large Array to check the black hole out.

Honestly, I'm no scientist and black holes are one of those things I
have trouble wrapping my head around. Luckily, Phil "Bad Astronomer"
Plait isn't as clueless:

This is a composite of two
images, one taken in radio wavelengths by the Very Large Array (in red)
and the other in X-rays by the orbiting Chandra Observatory (in blue).
The X-rays are being emitted by gas blasting away from the black hole,
heated up by the disk and the magnetic fields affiliated with the hole
itself. The radio waves are from gas that previously existed outside and
farther away from the black hole, which is being slammed into, stirred
up, and swept away by the outflowing gas.

Check out the entirety of what Plait has to say here.