Scientists have found one giant black hole going quiet, right after chewing up a bunch of stars in the immediate neighborhood.
The BBC plays it cool, accusing the dark gnawer at Sculptor's heart of "napping after a meal". But they miss its deeper horror. For consider the black hole's location:
a so-called starburst galaxy where stars are being born at a prodigious rate [emphasis added]
This isn't a genteel murderer, sweetly abstaining from cruelty. It's a child predator, stationed in full hunger right outside the biggest, most productive nursery around.
As HPL put it:
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.
(link via Ed Webb; image from Wikipedia)
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