Astronomers Explain Mysterious Dimming of Markarian 1018
By combining data from Chandra, VLT and several other telescopes, astronomers reveal that the dimming of Markarian 1018 arises from the black hole at the…
Black Hole News
Astronomers Discover a”Nearly Naked” Supermassive Black Hole
Using the Very Long Baseline Array a team of astronomers has discovered the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving…
Chandra Telescope Reveals Evidence for a “Wandering” Black Hole
Astronomers have discovered a “wandering” black hole in the outer regions of a galaxy about 4.5 billion light years from Earth. Evidence suggests this newly…
Researchers Measure Magnetic Fields in the Vicinity of a Black Hole
A team of researchers has measured the magnetic fields in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 1052. Two particle…
Astronomers Solve the Mystery of a Rare Change in the Behavior of a Supermassive Black Hole
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope along with the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers has solved the mystery of a…
Astrophysicists Show Milky Way Had a Blowout Bash 6 Million Years Ago
New research from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that the center of the Milky Way was once a very active place. The center of…
NASA Telescopes Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection
Using data from from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, astronomers studying distant galaxies powered by monster black holes have…
Spitzer Provides Astronomers with a New Way to See the Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole
Astronomers are using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to further explore Sagittarius A*. At the center of our Milky Way galaxy lies a cosmic beast called…
Chandra Reveals Evidence for Violent Stellar Merger
Using data from Chandra, astronomers have the strongest evidence to date that violent stellar mergers produce pencil-thin jets. This result has implications for estimating the…
Astronomers Prove the Existence of a “Gravitational Vortex” Around a Black Hole
Using data from XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, astronomers have proved the existence of a “gravitational vortex” around a black hole. This new discovery, aided by NASA’s…
Astronomers Discover Evidence of a ‘Direct-Collapse Black Hole’
A newly published study details evidence for a direct collapse black hole in the Lyman α source CR7. Astronomers Aaron Smith and Volker Bromm of…
Astronomers Measure the Intrinsic Shape of the Milky Way’s Black Hole
A newly published study details how astronomers successfully measured the intrinsic shape of Sagittarius A* at 3.5-mm wavelength. At the heart of our galaxy’s center…
Low-Mass Black Hole May Represent New Population
By combining data from Chandra and several other telescopes, astronomers have identified the true nature of an unusual source in the Milky Way galaxy. This…
Astronomers Discover X-Ray Echoes from a Black Hole That Shattered a Passing Star
Using data from the Swift Satellite, astronomers have identified the reflections of X-ray flares erupting from a star that was shattered by a black hole….
Did LIGO Find Dark Matter?
When it was announced that LIGO detected gravitational waves this past February, astrophysicists wondered about something else: Had the experiment found the “dark matter” that…
LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves Again
The twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves for the second time. The signal was produced by two black holes colliding 1.4…
Astronomers Observe Supermassive Black Hole Feeding on Cold Gas
A newly published study details the first direct evidence to support the hypothesis that black holes feed on clouds of cold gas. At the center…
Supermassive Black Holes in ‘Red Geyser’ Galaxies Suppress Star Formation
New research details the discovery of a new class of galaxies, called “red geysers,” with supermassive black hole winds so hot and energetic that stars…
