Closing In on a Monster: A black hole’s dusty environs show themselves

The first clear picture of the immediate surroundings of a supermassive black hole is confirming that these gravitational monsters hide behind thick belts of dust. The observed shroud suggests that such black holes, which weigh millions to billions of times as much as the sun, may be far more numerous than astronomers have estimated and collectively generate as much power as all the stars in the universe.