Black hole creation is crazier than previously thought, new observations reveal. Over the course of just a few minutes, as a massive star dies and a black hole is born, multiple explosions cause the black hole to powerfully eject matter as well as greedily consume it.

It all starts with a gamma-ray burst – the most powerful type of explosion in the universe and an indicator that a massive star is dying in what astronomers call a hypernova.

A surprising chain reaction ensues as the black hole forms from the collapsed remains of the star. Before these observations – made with NASA's Swift satellite telescope, which specializes in gamma-ray burst detection – scientists believed that star death was a single explosion event.