Eclipse of a Black Hole

Eclipses are a lot more useful than I would have thought. In this article scientists explaint that they used an eclipse of a black hole by a dust cloud to learn more about the black hole itself. What they mostly discovered was the size of the disk surrounding the black hole. This dust is the matter that will eventually be swallowed by the black hole. The measeument made agrees with theoretical predictions, always a plus. The other thing they figured out was the location of the dust cloud causing the eclipse, and it is a lot closer to the black hole than previously thought. This means that the black holle will capture the cloud much sooner than thought.