We have long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely new, and crucially important, side to black holes.
Super-sized versions, often billions of times more massive than the Sun, lurk in every galaxy in the universe. And these chasms don't just vacuum up everything around them; they also spit out huge clouds of matter and energy. Renowned astrophysicist Caleb Scharf reveals how these giant black holes profoundly rearrange the cosmos that surrounds them, controlling the number of stars in the galaxies and, in turn, the entire universe.