This artist's concept shows a galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its core. The black hole is shooting out jets of radio waves. Black holes are surrounded and nourished by disks of gas and dust, called accretion disks. Powerful jets stream out from below and above the disks like lasers, and fierce winds blow off from the disks themselves. The black holes can spin either in the same direction as the disks, called prograde black holes, or against the flow -- the retrograde black holes. New research led by theoretical astrophysicist David Garofalo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., suggests supermassive black holes that spin backwards might produce more ferocious jets of gas. The results have broad implications for how galaxies change over time.