Astronomers Clock a Black Hole Spinning at Half the Speed of Light

Black holes are massive beasts that annihilate anything that dares to cross them. We don’t know a whole lot about these invisible, terrifying bodies, but astronomers have found a new way to study their mysterious behavior.By observing the X-rays blasting from a star torn apart by a black hole, a team of researchers were able to calculate how fast the black hole spins — clocking it at nearly 50 percent the speed of light. This marks the first time that astronomers used X-ray