Astronomers map 1.3 million supermassive black holes
Ever wonder where all the active supermassive black holes are in the universe? Now, with the largest quasar catalog yet, you can see the locations of 1.3 million quasars in 3D. The catalog, Quaia, can...
View ArticleYes, an exploding star close to Earth would make for a very bad day
Stars like the Sun are remarkably constant. They vary in brightness by only 0.1% over years and decades, thanks to the fusion of hydrogen into helium that powers them. This process will keep the Sun...
View ArticleA galaxy’s bright flicker turned out to be two black holes dancing in the night
Just a few years ago, in a galaxy 848 million light-years away, astronomers witnessed something strange happen. The supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of this galaxy was chugging along just...
View ArticleHow to help astronomers study gamma-ray bursts
When faraway stars explode, they send out flashes of energy called gamma-ray bursts that are bright enough that telescopes back on Earth can detect them. Studying these pulses, which can also come from...
View ArticleThe largest digital camera ever made for astronomy is done
A digital camera the size of a sedan was recently completed with the hopes of gleaning new information about dark energy, dark matter, the Milky Way, and more. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time...
View ArticleIceCube researchers detect a rare type of particle sent from powerful...
The IceCube detector. Credit: Stephan Richter, IceCube/NSF, Creative Commons The post IceCube researchers detect a rare type of particle sent from powerful astronomical objects appeared first on...
View ArticleHow do you find a black hole? An astronomer explains the thrilling hunt
In a universe full of fascinating and exotic phenomena, few objects challenge the imagination quite like black holes. Discovering new black holes, however, is no easy feat — where do you even begin to...
View ArticleWhich came first, galaxies or black holes? This is the plan to find out
Almost all galaxies host giant black holes at their hearts, and it appears that the two are inseparable. But so far, astronomers have not been able to decode how they are connected. A new proposed...
View ArticleAstronomers uncover ‘sleeping giant’ black hole Gaia BH3, the largest ever...
Pasquale Panuzzo of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was among a team of astronomers routinely processing data from Gaia, the European star-mapping observatory, when a peculiar...
View ArticleCould you survive falling into a black hole? It depends.
Black holes are the darlings of science and science fiction. They were conceptualized as early as 1783 by English natural philosopher John Michell, who proposed “dark stars.” He envisioned stars whose...
View Article‘Hairy’ black holes may get a massive glow-up from the LISA spacecrafts
Physicists consider black holes one of the most mysterious objects that exist. Ironically, they’re also considered one of the simplest. For years, physicists like me have been looking to prove that...
View ArticleNASA’s asteroid Bennu samples have rocks unlike any meteorite ever found
Bennu curation teams process the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in a cleanroom, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023 The post NASA’s asteroid Bennu samples have rocks unlike any meteorite ever...
View ArticleIn a cosmic breakthrough, astronomers measure a supermassive black hole’s spin
Supermassive black holes lie in the centers of all large galaxies. And a group of astronomers including researchers from MIT and NASA have, for the first time, measured how fast one of these behemoths...
View ArticleHow Chandra’s clear, sharp photos help study supermassive black holes
When a star is born or dies, or when any other very energetic phenomenon occurs in the universe, it emits X-rays, which are high-energy light particles that aren’t visible to the naked eye. These...
View Article‘Oumuamua: Can we catch an interstellar interloper?
1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) was discovered in October 2017; shortly after, it was determined to be the first object ever seen inside the solar system that had come from beyond it. But by the time its...
View ArticleA weird, repeating radio signal from space stumps astronomers
When astronomers turn our radio telescopes out towards space, we sometimes detect sporadic bursts of radio waves originating from across the vast expanse of the universe. We call them “radio...
View ArticleWhen black holes merge, is the diameter of the new black hole bigger?
When black holes merge, does the actual diameter of the new black hole increase, or just its mass? Richard RobinsonClay, New York The short answer is yes: When two black holes merge, the resulting...
View ArticleMassive black holes may eat differently in small galaxies than in large ones
It’s well known that all massive galaxies like the Milky Way host supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun in their centers. These galaxies and their black holes are...
View ArticleA distant black hole reawakens, and astronomers watch it happen
At the center of an average joe galaxy 300 million light-years away, something has just happened that has astronomers at the edge of their seats. Suddenly, a supermassive black hole inhabiting the...
View ArticleMysterious Cloverleaf ‘odd radio circle’ could be a merger of a dozen galaxies
In 2020 when astronomers using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) discovered ghostly circles of radio emissions in the sky that were so gigantic, they surpassed our Milky Way’s...
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