A black hole blast erupts from the nearby Centaurus A galaxy, seen in this Chandra X-ray Observatory image released on February 6.

The x-ray jets shoot out from the poles of the "supermassive" black hole at the center of the galaxy, located some 12 million light-years away. The jets consist of dust and gas ripped from stars by the gravity of the monster black hole.

Most galaxies are suspected to harbor a black hole at their center, including our own Milky Way, though ours doesn't display such dramatic jets. The smaller lights in the Chandra image, which combines views of Centaurus A taken from 1999 to 2012, are smaller black holes.

Baked Alaska, anyone? The northern lights glimmer over the town of