41-Million-Pixel Vertex Locator May Unlock Some of the Most Enduring Mysteries of the Universe
The device hopes to answer the ultimate existential questions. The final piece of an all-new detector has completed the first leg of its journey toward…
Astrophysics
What Is the Multiverse? Is It Just Science Fiction, or Does It Really Exist?
Whether you need a new villain or an old Spider-Man, your sci-fi movie will sound more scientifically credible if you use the word multiverse. The…
Explosion on a White Dwarf Star Observed for the Very First Time
When stars like our Sun run out of fuel, they contract to form white dwarfs. Such dead stars can sometimes flare back to life in…
Supernova Forensics: Eight Years Later, a Mysterious Stellar Explosion Is Still Revealing Secrets
Study including University of Chicago researchers analyzes aftermath of 2014 supernova. An international group of astronomers has uncovered new clues about a mysterious stellar explosion…
First-Ever Image of the Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way
Team reveals first image of the black hole at our galaxy’s heart. An international team of more than 300 scientists from 80 institutions has created…
Astronomers Map the Movement of White Dwarfs of the Milky Way
White dwarfs were once normal stars similar to the Sun but then collapsed after exhausting all their fuel. Historically, these interstellar remnants have been difficult…
Stunning Reveal: First Image of the Black Hole at the Center of Our Milky Way Galaxy
Today, at simultaneous press conferences around the world, including at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) headquarters in Germany, astronomers have unveiled the first image of…
Meet Sagittarius A* – Astronomers Reveal First Image of the Black Hole at the Heart of the Milky Way
Today (May 12, 2022), at simultaneous press conferences around the world, including at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) headquarters in Germany, astronomers have unveiled the…
Groundbreaking Milky Way Results From the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration – Watch Live
Update: Stunning Reveal: First Image of the Black Hole at the Center of Our Milky Way Galaxy Today (May 12, 2022) at 9:00 a.m. EDT…
Doomed To Collide: Astronomers Announce Discovery of Supermassive Binary Black Holes
A team of researchers from Purdue University and other institutions has discovered a supermassive black hole binary system, one of only two known such systems….
Astronomers Detect Supermassive Black Hole Precursor – Could Be Evolutionary “Missing Link”
An international team of astronomers has discovered a unique object in the distant, early Universe that is a crucial link between star-forming galaxies and the…
Sizing Up the “Shadows” of Two Supermassive Black Holes in the Process of Colliding
In a Pair of Merging Supermassive Black Holes, a New Method for Measuring the Void Scientists have discovered a way of sizing up the ‘shadows’…
“Dark Stars” – A Brief History of Black Holes
Late in 2018, the gravitational wave observatory, LIGO, announced that they had detected the most distant and massive source of ripples of spacetime ever monitored:…
Gravitational Wave Scientists Pioneer New Laser Mode Sensor With Unprecedented Precision
Lasers support certain structures of light known as “eigenmodes.” An international collaboration of experts in gravitational waves, metasurfaces, and photonics has pioneered a new method…
Examining the Heart of the Webb Space Telescope: The Final Phase of Commissioning
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is now experiencing all seasons – from hot to cold – as it undergoes the thermal stability test. Meanwhile, activities…
Astronomy & Astrophysics 101: Elliptical Galaxy
What Is an Elliptical Galaxy? Elliptical galaxies have an even, ellipsoidal shape. They typically contain a much greater proportion of older stars than spiral galaxies…
NASA’s Black Hole Orrery – Spectacular Visualization of 22 X-Ray Binary Systems That Host Black Holes
This visualization shows 22 X-ray binaries in our Milky Way galaxy and its nearest neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud, that host confirmed stellar-mass black holes….
Galactic Ballet Captured by State-of-the-Art Dark Energy Camera
DOE-funded Dark Energy Camera at NSF’s NOIRLab in Chile captures a pair of galaxies performing a gravitational duet. The interacting galaxy pair NGC 1512 and…
