Black Holes Once Stirred a Seething Cosmic Cauldron

The real work of modern science often starts with pixels on a screen. In one case, in the spring of 2003, a display of pixels on my desk in New York conveyed the message that Chandra, the X-ray telescope orbiting high above the Earth’s surface, had obtained a precious cargo of data.

For the previous couple of days, the finest mirrors and instruments that humans could produce had pointed toward a small patch of the cosmos, close to the constellation of Auriga -- the Charioteer. In this direction we could see all the way to 4C41.17, a mysterious structure deep in the cosmic past.