Look around you -- soil, wood, concrete, paint, glass, phones, people, light, clouds, stars -- an incredible variety of things. According to modern physics, however, deep down everything is made of the same basic building blocks. In this class, you will learn about these building blocks and explore how they are combined to make the world around us.

Almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center, and some of these black holes are being fed by large amounts of gas. This feeding process grows the black hole and also releases huge amounts of energy and light, from X-rays to radio waves. We call galaxies whose black holes are being fed “active galaxies”. Come on a journey to the center of these active galaxies, as we learn about the cosmic beasts that power them!