One small nitpick about a statement in the article; it says:<p><i>Though we think of them as cosmic vacuum cleaners, black holes are actually just like any other massive body, such as a star. This means other objects can safely orbit them, until they get within a particular distance and pass what’s known as the event horizon, after which there is no escaping being sucked in.</i><p>Technically, you can't "safely orbit" a black hole if you're any closer to it than three times the horizon radius. That is, there are no stable free-falling orbits, like orbits around a planet or star, closer than that. If you want to get closer than that to the event horizon without falling in, you will need to continuously fire your rockets to hold yourself at altitude against the hole's gravity.