Black-and-white movies might be easy to dismiss as a thing of the past, but some of the most forward-thinking science fiction stories were told through the medium that still hold up today.

It wasn't clear whether grey smoke was closer to black or white, for example. By the 1970s, the straw method had been abandoned in favor of more controllable chemical mixtures.

They found the black hole’s accretion disk emits a constant stream of flares with no periods of rest. This video shows the 2.1 micron data taken on April 7, 2024.

The James Webb Space Telescope has shown that the Milky Way’s black hole is constantly blazing with light, releasing long flares as well as short flashes every day.

That method was also imperfect science. In the case of John Paul I, an amusing video from the time shows befuddled reporters panicking as white smoke from the chimney turns black.