Black Hole Eats Asteroids, Burps Out X-Rays

The article says:

Researchers now suggest that tens of trillions of asteroids and comets, stolen from their parent stars, might float around the black hole. If a 12-mile-wide (or larger) asteroid should get within 100 million miles of the black hole, tidal forces would rip it to shreds. These fragments would then fall in and be vaporized by friction as they encounter the gas and dust churning around the black hole.

(emphasis mine)

Which is just a sciency example of the line from Hitchhiker’s Guide:

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.