Gas Cloud Headed Towards Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
While monitoring the movement of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, astronomers discovered an ionized gas cloud with a…
Black Hole News
Study Challenges Prevailing Ideas About How Supermassive Black Holes Grow
A new study challenges prevailing ideas about how supermassive black holes grow in the centers of galaxies, finding that two supermassive black holes and their…
NuSTAR Set to Study Some of the Most Energetic Phenomena in the Universe
NASA’s NuSTAR mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean on June 13, providing researchers with sharp images of black…
Evidence Suggests Black Holes Can “Change Gears”
Using X-ray observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio observations from the Expanded Very Large Array in New Mexico, astronomers studied two black hole…
Black Hole Ejected from Home Galaxy, Moving at 3 Million MPH
Observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that a supermassive black hole is being ejected from its host galaxy at a speed of at least…
X-Ray Echoes Demonstrate the Reality of Relativistic Reverberation
Limited by today’s telescope technology, an international team of astronomers searched for another way to probe supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. By analyzing data…
Gamma-Ray Beams Suggest Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Had Active Past
NASA’s Fermi space telescope captured evidence of two gamma-ray beams that extend from the galactic center to a distance of 27,000 light-years above and below…
Searching for Link Between Star Formation and Black Hole Activity
To better understand how star formation and black hole activity are linked, scientists are looking back 8 to 12 billion years, a time when star…
Astronomers Observed Evolved Star Being Devoured
A team of CfA astronomers is reporting that the object they observed using the Pan-STARRS telescope was a supermassive black hole, roughly two million solar…
Black Hole Rips Apart a Helium Rich Star
Data captured by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Pan-STARRS1 telescope show direct evidence of a supermassive black hole using its powerful gravitational forces to…
Astronomers Discover Large Group of Rogue Stars
As scientists are learning more about rogue stars, they are also learning new ways to locate them. A new study from astronomers at Vanderbilt University…
Extraordinary Outburst From Black Hole in Galaxy M83
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists discovered a new ultraluminous X-ray source located in spiral galaxy M83, which is roughly 15 million light years from…
Black Holes Have an Appetite for Stars
It seems that black holes have appetites large enough to swallow stars. Astronomers at the University of Utah and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have…
The “Ordinary” Black Hole of Centaurus A
A newly published study describes the findings of a black hole located 12 million light-years away in galaxy Centaurus A. Although black holes are believed…
Spacecraft to Explore Supermassive Black Holes at Center of Galaxies
By the standards of space-based astronomy, NASA’s new NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) telescope that will be launched later this month has a modest budget…
“Zoom-Ins” Track and Model Parcels of Gas as They Move Inward Towards the Torus
Scientists aren’t sure how quasars form, how they develop in time, or how (or what) physical processes generate their stupendous energies; but by using a…
Thermonuclear Behavior of Neutron Star Bridges Gap Between Theory and Observation
Over the period of roughly one month, NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observed some 400 thermonuclear explosions on the surface of the neutron star…
Ultra-Fast Outflows are Common Features of Black-Hole-Powered Galaxies
Researchers targeted 42 nearby active galaxies and used data from the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite and NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite to show…