This artist's impression shows a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disc and dust torus. Material within the accretion disc is accelerated to extremely high velocities by the inexorable gravitational pull of the black hole. The ESA-NASA-JAXA International X-ray Observatory (IXO) mission candidate, being considered for launch around 2020, will enable more detailed study of the composition and behaviour of such highly energetic material, which radiates at X-ray wavelengths.