New images of a voracious black hole gobbling the leftovers of a small galaxy in Earth's neighborhood could help astronomers learn more about these mysterious phenomena, NASA said Thursday. In a picture of galactic cannibalism, the Hubble Space Telescope snapped an image of a black hole at the center of the giant galaxy Centaurus A, just 10 million light-years from Earth.

A light-year is about 6 trillion miles. The suspected black hole - the existence of these matter-sucking phenomena has not been absolutely confirmed - is shown feeding on the remnants of a smaller galaxy, astronomers said.

(c) Reuters