---
title: "NASA Probe Exploring Asteroid Accidentally Snaps Black Hole Image"
description: "NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made an unexpected discovery, spotting a black hole emitting a massive cloud of X-rays some 30,000 light years away."
date: "2020-03-03"
modified: "2020-03-03"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-probe-exploring-asteroid-snaps-black-hole-image"
categories:
  - "Astrophysics"
  - "Black Holes"
  - "Science & Energy"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "black hole"
  - "NASA"
  - "osiris-rex"
  - "the digest"
---

# NASA Probe Exploring Asteroid Accidentally Snaps Black Hole Image

![NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made an unexpected discovery, spotting a black hole emitting a massive cloud of X-rays some 30,000 light years away.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/nasa-probe-exploring-asteroid-snaps-black-hole-image.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/MIT/Harvard\</em\>*

## Photobomb

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made an unexpected discovery last year, [spotting](<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/osiris-rex-students-catch-unexpected-glimpse-of-black-hole>) a black hole emitting a massive cloud of X-rays some 30,000 light years away.

The "[photobombing](<https://gizmodo.com/black-hole-photobombs-asteroid-1842035249>)" black hole was picked up by the spacecraft's Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS), an instrument built by researchers at MIT and Harvard to measure X-rays that the asteroid Bennu emits when blasted by solar radiation.

## Sample Platter

OSIRIS -REx is an ongoing sample-return mission to Bennu, a space rock chosen by scientists because it is suspected to hold organic molecules and could reveal other secrets about the origin of our Solar System. The mission launched in 2016 and [rendezvoused](<https://futurism.com/asteroid-bennu-nasa-osiris-rex-mission>) with the asteroid in December 2018.

But last November, the REXIS instrument caught an unusual sight.

"Our initial checks showed no previously cataloged object in that position in space," Branden Allen, a Harvard research scientist who made the discovery, said in [a statement](<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/osiris-rex-students-catch-unexpected-glimpse-of-black-hole>).

## X-Ray Outburst

With the help of data collected by Japan's MAXI telescope on board the International Space Station a week earlier, the team identified the glowing dot as an X-ray event involving a black hole — a sudden outburst of X-rays caused by a black hole gobbling up matter.

According to NASA, it's the first time such an outburst of X-rays was detected from interplanetary space.

**READ MORE:** [Black Hole Photobombs Asteroid](<https://gizmodo.com/black-hole-photobombs-asteroid-1842035249>) \[*Gizmodo*\]

**More on OSIRIS-REx:** *[NASA’s First-Ever Asteroid Return Mission Just Reached Its Target](<https://futurism.com/asteroid-bennu-nasa-osiris-rex-mission>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)