Black holes are so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational grips. Though invisible, astronomers have inferred the presence of the dark behemoths from their effects on nearby objects. And this year, it seems, all the crazies came out of their cosmic closets.

Take the fastest-spinning black hole, found to whirl around at speeds approaching the speed of light.

And when it comes to obesity, one black hole could've gobbled up 18 billion suns. This giant would dwarf the smallest black hole found this year, weighing in at about 3.8 times the mass of our sun and spanning just 15 miles (24 km) in diameter.

Researchers also found this year that some supermassive black holes, which reside at the centers of many or all galaxies, spew out giant bubbles from the tips of their jets. (As material falls into the gravitational clutches of a black hole, the energy can be spit out as jets of radiation and high-speed particles.)

The bubbles ultimately pop, spilling their gaseous guts. Turns out, the hot gas keeps the black hole and its galaxy from ballooning to mega sizes.

Black holes can also take the form of "masked fugitive." Computer simulations revealed that when two black holes merge, the energy produced can kick the newly merged black hole clear out of its galaxy.

Also, for the first time this year, scientists detected such a rogue black hole racing along at 5,900,000 mph (2,650 kilometers per second).