Extreme astrophysical sources

Extreme astrophysical sources, those where the largest energy transfers occur, give all way to gravity's fatal attraction to sustain their unrivalled power. With a special emphasis on space observations, we present an inventory of extreme astrophysical sources which follows the filiation supernovae, neutron stars and black holes, before ending with supermassive black holes. This ill-assorted population of cosmic sites has some traits in common, the black-hole relativistic-jet connection being commonplace, from solar-mass specimens up to supermassive ones.