That's a mystery, how these black holes selectively put that much energy into the jets without producing much light.

They attracted our attention because they were too boring.

They never seem to lose their efficiency, they just put out the energy in different ways in different phases.

Black holes are perhaps the most exotic objects to impinge on the cosmic consciousness. They are formed when matter such as that from a dying massive star collapses in calamitously under its own gravity, forming a region of space in which the gravitational field is so strong that it swallows all matter and radiation that come near it.

There had to be something else happening that would explain this discrepancy. Rather than trying to compete, I decided join up.

We see enough energy coming out of these black holes to completely stifle star formation. This is an exciting finding because it demonstrates a direct interaction between black holes and galaxy formation, which is a hot topic in astrophysics right now.

Though we don't definitely know the mechanism by which these jets are produced, our findings are supportive of the idea that magnetic field lines interact in a way that causes them to work like the elastic bands of a giant sling shot throwing incoming material back out from the black hole.

If a car was as fuel-efficient as these black holes, it could theoretically travel over a billion miles on a gallon of gas.

There are other families of particles out there that can form massive compact objects.