Accretion by a supermassive black hole - stock illustration

This image shows the aftermath of the accretion of a star by a supermassive black hole. Black holes such as these lurk at the centres of many, if not all, galaxies, and can weight in at anything from a few tens of thousands to several billion times the mass of a single star. The star has been completely destroyed, its gasses mingling inside the giant accretion disc with those of previous stars which met the same fate.