Cosmic lens exposes spin of supermassive black hole
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ticker_blackhole_spin.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
The light coming from matter falling into a black hole 6 billion light-years away was magnified and split into four images by a large galaxy that sits much closer to Earth. This composite image shows the four bright spots (purple) in a ring that gave away the black hole's existence and ultimately its spin.
X-ray: CXC/NASA; Optical: STScI/NASA