“Mini” Monster Black Hole Discovery Could Reveal Secrets to Giant’s Growth
The discovery of a supermassive black hole in a relatively small galaxy could help astronomers unravel the mystery surrounding how the very biggest black holes…
Black Hole
Black Hole at Center of Milky Way Is Unpredictable and Chaotic – Mysterious Flares Erupt Every Day
An international team of researchers, led by postgraduate student Alexis Andrés, has found that the black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*,…
New Evidence of Gravitational Wave Background Permeating All of Spacetime
The results of a comprehensive search for a background of ultra-low frequency gravitational waves has been announced by an international team of astronomers including scientists…
Astronomers Discover Four Enormous Bubbles Caused by Giant Black Holes
Scientists have found four enormous cavities, or bubbles, at the center of a galaxy cluster using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This unusual set of features…
“Mini” Monster Black Hole Discovery May Provide Clues to Astonishing Supermassive Growth
Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole in the dwarf galaxy Mrk 462 with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The percentage of these galaxies that have…
How To Weigh a Quasar: Directly Measuring Masses of Supermassive Black Holes
Testing a new, direct method for determining the masses of supermassive black holes. Astronomers of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have, for the first…
Are Black Holes and Dark Matter the Same? Astrophysicists Upend Textbook Explanations
Upending textbook explanations, astrophysicists from the University of Miami, Yale University, and the European Space Agency suggest that primordial black holes account for all dark…
Black Holes of All Shapes and Sizes in Largest Catalog of Gravitational Wave Events Ever Assembled
The largest catalog of gravitational wave events ever assembled has been released by an international collaboration that includes Penn State researchers. Gravitational waves are ripples…
Astronomers Spy Quartet of Enormous Cavities From Giant Black Holes
Four cavities in the hot gas of a single galaxy cluster have been found. Astronomers found this quartet of X-ray cavities in the cluster located…
Astronomers Capture Supermassive Black Hole Eruption Near Earth Spanning 16 Times the Full Moon in the Sky
Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth. The emission is powered by…
Black Holes Could Be Dark Matter – And May Have Existed Since the Beginning of the Universe
Did black holes form immediately after the Big Bang? How did supermassive black holes form? What is dark matter? In an alternative model for how…
Super-Bright Extragalactic Stellar Explosion – “The Cow” – Is Likely a Dying Star Giving Birth to a Black Hole or Neutron Star
The discovery, based on an unusual event dubbed “The Cow,” may offer astronomers a new way to spot infant compact objects. In June of 2018,…
Watch Stars Race Around the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole at Mind-Boggling Speeds
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) has obtained the deepest and sharpest images to date of the region around the supermassive…
Explaining “Invisible” Black Holes: How Stellar Winds Can Create Disks Around Black Holes
The first evidence of the existence of black holes was found in the 1960s, when strong X-rays were detected from a system called Cygnus X-1….
Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Still Smoldering Long After Powerful “Death-Ray” Beam Outburst
Hubble Finds a Smoldering Remnant in a Blast From the Past In some science fiction movies there is a sleeping monster, like Godzilla, who suddenly…
Scouting Active Supermassive Black Holes With NASA’s Webb Space Telescope
Researchers will examine three active supermassive black holes – known as quasars – their host galaxies, and their neighborhoods to better detail these distant objects…
NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) Mission Is Set To Launch – How To Watch Live
NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission, the first satellite dedicated to measuring…
Strangely Massive Black Hole Discovered in Milky Way Satellite Galaxy
Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory have discovered an unusually massive black hole at the heart of one of the Milky…