Black Holes Regurgitate 'Spitballs' After Devouring Stars

When a black hole devours a star, it spews planet-size "spitballs" of regurgitated gas tumbling through the galaxy — and some of these globs can come within a few hundred light-years of Earth, new research shows. The massive cosmic bodies have a powerful gravitational force that pulls in nearby wandering stars, tears them to shreds and, as a result, spews out a stream of hot gas that can clump together to form planet-size objects, according to a statement from the Harvard-Smithsonian Cente