New, highly detailed images of M87* from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration have revealed that the supermassive black hole’s magnetic fields are changing direction over time. Credit: EHT Collaboration, Amy C. Oliver/CfABlockbuster movies tell us that black holes are fantastic traps where things go in and never get out. But exactly how black holes perform this magic trick, and what it means for the fundamental nature of gravity, is only beginning to be revealed. “This tells us that the magnetized plasma swirling near the event horizon is far from static; it’s dynamic and complex, pushing our theoretical models to the limit.”The stability of M87*’s shadow can be taken as evidence that “black holes have no hair,” a decades-old metaphor meaning that black holes are simple geometric objects with no descriptive parameters beyond their mass, spin and charge. “But the stuff around it can have hair, and these magnetic fields are a striking example.