A supermassive black hole pulls in hot gas, offering astronomers clues about the growth of black holes and the behavior of matter under their gravitational clutches.

Previous findings have shown black holes pulling material toward them, but this black hole, at the center of large, lens-shaped galaxy known as NGC 3115, reveals the first clear signals of hot gas in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

“It’s exciting to find such clear evidence for gas in the grip of a massive black hole,” said Ka-Wah Wong of the University of Alabama, in a release. “Chandra’s resolving power provides a unique opportunity to understand more about how black holes capture material by studying this nearby object.”

As the gas approaches the black hole, the compression makes it glow hotter and brighter. This temperature rise begins about 700 light-years away from the black hole, allowing astronomers to estimate the black hole’s mass. The supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 3115, they calculate, has a mass of about 2 billion Suns, making it the nearest billion-solar-mass black hole to Earth at 32 million light-years away.

Image: Composite image of galaxy NGC 3115. (X-ray data: NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory/Univ. of Alabama/K. Wong et al; Optical data: European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope)