I won’t lie. I love black holes because they sound badass.

Better yet, black holes smashing into each other? Crazy chaotic warped space-time mayhem!

But what does it look like? Visualizing this kind of thing is like trying to map out the entire Internet using the Dewey Decimal system. With Post-it notes.

Fortunately, brilliant physicists tend to like a challenge. A group from Caltech, Cornell and the National Institute for Theoretical Physicists came up with some spiral- and ring-shaped designs to paint a picture of black hole collisions, which stretch and warp space like a really extreme version of how our moon causes ocean tides. Extreme meaning it would destroy anything in its path.

Here’s the kaleidoscopic illustration developed by The Caltech/Cornell SXS Collaboration:

Read more on the official Caltech press release, which explains some of the physics behind this and the team’s discoveries about black hole collisions.

I remain transparent about how it’s tough to get the non-science world to get excited about scientific breakthroughs unless there’s hype, pretty pictures or a threat to end the world. In which case, we’ll be looking to the scientists to fix it.