( CNN ) -- NASA 's black-hole hunting telescope has captured a cosmic battle between dark and light . NuSTAR , formally known as the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array , has observed a supermassive black hole 's gravity tugging on X-ray light that 's being emitted near that black hole . That light is getting stretched and blurred , and researchers are getting to see it all in unprecedented detail , said NASA in a news release issued today . In this instance , the corona -- a source of X-ray light that sits near a black hole -- recently collapsed in toward the black hole that 's named Markarian 335 . The NuSTAR telescope has been collecting X-rays from black holes and dying stars for the past two years . The craft completed its primary mission earlier this year , and it was redirected to investigate Markarian 335 once scientists noticed that the black hole had become dramatically brighter . NuSTAR observed that Markarian 335 's gravity sucked the corona 's light , an illuminating action that NASA likened to someone shining a flashlight for astronomers . Scientists can now see the corona `` lighting up material around the black hole , '' which allows them to study `` the most extreme light-bending effects '' of Albert Einstein 's theory of general relativity , said NuSTAR 's principal investigator , Fiona Harrison , in the news release . She is with the California Institute of Technology . As if NuSTAR 's observations and Einstein 's theories are n't mind-boggling enough , NASA says the black hole Markarian 335 `` spins so rapidly that space and time are dragged around with it . '' The space agency says the new observations could help scientists better understand mysterious coronas and black holes , which are thought to be formed when massive stars collapse , creating such density that not even light can escape their intense gravitational pull . Scientists believe supermassive black holes reside in the centers of galaxies . Some are more massive and rotate faster than others .
NASA 's NuSTAR searches the galaxy looking for black holes . The black hole known as Markarian 335 is capturing and bending nearby X-ray light . The event is literally shedding light on how Einstein 's theory of relativity works in extremes .