This movie illustrates the range of spatial and time-scales at play in nuclear star formation and black hole growth. Colors map shows gas density. We pick a short time in a cosmological simulation and “zoom in” on the gas inflows into the galaxy nucleus. The timescale is uniform — we see that the central gas dynamics are fundamentally bursty and very rapid on short timescales, and the BH goes through many independent episodes of activity and inactivity, in a cosmological “instant”. Movie made by Daniel Angles Alcazar.