Artist’s conception of a supermassive black hole (lower left) with its tremendous gravity capturing one star (bluish, center) from a pair of binary stars, while hurling the second star (yellowish, upper right) away at a hypervelocity of more than 1 million mph (1.6 million km/h). The grayish blobs are other stars captured in a cluster near the black hole. They appear distorted because the black hole’s gravity curves spacetime and thus bends the starlight. Ciredit: Ben Bromley (University of Utah)