But not everything heading toward a black hole goes in. Some energy is squirted out in two opposing jets, along the axis of the black hole's rotation.

Astronomers have detected these ejection jets in radio waves and X-rays. They suspect that the infalling matter and the outflowing energy are related, all having to do with the violent interactions that occur right where matter reaches the point of no return, a sphere of influence known as a black hole's event horizon.

Strong magnetic fields play into this interaction.

The new simulation shows how it all might work. The research was led by Shinji Koide of Toyama University, Toyama, Japan.

The simulation process is similar to weather-prediction techniques, which create animations of how clouds might move based on satellite views and knowledge of the atmosphere and gravity effects. In much the same way, the scientists combined data about plasma swirling into a black hole with knowledge about how gravity and magnetic fields would affect it.

"In this case, jets of pure electromagnetic energy are ejected by the magnetic field along the north and south poles, above the black hole," said David Meier, an astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who worked on the study. "The jets contain energy equivalent to the power of the Sun, multiplied ten billion times and then increased another one billion times."

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