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Talk about a giant in the universe.
Astronomers have found some hot magnetized gas swirling around our galaxy's center.
The observation provides a rare glimpse into the early universe, offering clues about the formation and evolution of galaxies.
Images from the Event Horizon Telescope prove that the compact radio source at the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, is indeed a black hole.
Black holes may do more than just destroy -- they may also create new things.
The new observations are 20 times closer and sharper than ever before.
Black holes have firmly moved from the status of theoretical curiosity to physical reality. We follow that transformation and the incredible phenomena discovered along the way.
Its source is a radio loud quasar blasting out jets when the universe was still in its infancy.
The giant black hole formed just 670 million years after the Big Bang.
The hunt is on for black hole with up 100 billion solar masses that is nowhere to be found.
This could solve the mystery of tidal disruption events or ‘spaghettification.’
Astronomers have discovered a tremendous cosmic web in the early Universe. Trapped within its threads, six galaxies feeding gas to a central supermassive black hole.
It was so big it punched a hole in space the size of 15 Milky Ways.
New research has uncovered the presence of at least thirteen ‘wandering’ black holes in dwarf galaxies. Something, that until recently was not believed possible.
Astronomers think that the Milky Way's supermassive black hole may have a companion -- and that could teach us more about how galaxies form and evolve.
A new theory suggests that planets could form in dense dust and gas clouds surrounding supermassive black holes at the centre of active galaxies.
Astronomers have identified a runaway star travelling at an incredible 6 million kilometres per hour, ejected by the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy 5 million years ago.
This big boy just got the munchies.
Two-thousand processors simulated more than 8 million universes and countless galaxies.
A brave star and a supermassive black hole confirm Einstein's theory of general relativity.
It's simply mesmerizing.
The same should happen six billion years from now when the Milky Way merges with Andromeda.
These flares should correspond to the point of no return for the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.
It's the first time astronomers have achieved this feat.
It's the hungriest thing we've ever seen.
An incredibly fruitful mission sheds new secrets about the Milky Way.
An ingenious technique could enable us to witness some of the strongest gravitational waves.
This is one slow dance.
Ready to sink your teeth into some black holes?
Chances are you won't come across anything weirder than a black hole. Here's the proof...
In the aftermath of a titanic galactic battle, a merged black hole caused some waves.
A new study offers an unorthodox explanation for how supermassive black hole formed in the early Universe.
At the heart of virtually every galaxy, including the Milky Way, is a supermassive blackhole that's anywhere from hundreds of thousands to billions of times more massive than the sun. How these cosmic bodies start off is still a subject of debate.
Astronomers have found a supermassive black hole in a completely unexpected area of space, a sparse area where massive galaxies are few and far between.
That's what I call fatal attraction: two supermassive black holes are "dancing", drawn together by each other's humongous gravitational attraction, set for a collision that will likely send ripples through the very fabric of space-time.
Our Universe may be riddled with millions of supermassive black holes, a new study reports. The reason why we haven’t yet discovered them is because they are shrouded in thick clouds of dust and gas, and because we weren’t looking with the right telescope. Using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite observatory, astronomers from Durham […]
A team of astronomers has discovered a unique system of quadruple quasars. The quartet, discovered at the very edge of the universe, is one of the most massive structures in the known universe.
Astronomers have discovered a humongous supermassive black hole that’s 12 billion times as massive as the Sun. What’s peculiar about it isn’t necessarily its mass – some even bigger black holes have been found – but rather its age. Observations suggest that the black hole 12.8 billion light-years away, which means what scientists are reading […]
Dark matter and black holes are some of the most mysterious things in the Universe, so a connection between the two is absolutely thrilling. In a new study, astronomers report a strange link between the amount of dark matter in a galaxy and the size of its supermassive black hole. That’s an amazing new black […]
A mysterious cosmic object thought to be an immense cloud of gas and dust left scientists scratching their heads after it wasn’t consumed by the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of our galaxy. After it passed a critical point in its orbit around the black hole – where a gas cloud would […]
Two decades ago, astronomers started to find evidence that almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center. However, the discovery of a trio of black holes circling the center of a distant galaxy, reported by astronomers on Wednesday indicates that duos and trios of black holes are much more common than previously thought. […]
Astronomers have for the first time discovered a pair of supermassive black holes that orbit each other in an ordinary galaxy. At the heart of most galaxies, there lies a supermassive black hole – as you probably already figured out from the name, it’s like a normal black hole, but much bigger. But two supermassive […]
About half of the Universe’s lifetime ago, it was feasting time for supermassive black holes – they were eating galaxies left and right, a new study might suggest. Taking advantage of a galaxy which acts like a natural zoom lens in space, astronomers have analyzed a black hole powering a quasar about 6 billion light years […]
I think many of us wanted, at some point in our lives, to become astronauts. Unfortunately, not so many of us actually make it – but that doesn’t mean we can’t help. With only a laptop or a tablet, YOU can help astronomers discover black holes from the comfort of your couch. An international team […]
Black holes, the most massive objects in the Universe that we know of, which exert a gravitational force so big that even light can’t escape, come in one shape, but a variety of sizes; on the smaller end, you have stellar black holes, which take shape when a sufficiently large star collapses into itself, and […]
As we know by now, most galaxies, including our own, have a supermassive black hole at their center. However, the one in our galaxy, Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star) has a surprisingly small appetite, something which has puzzled astronomers for years. Sagittarius A* is 4 million times as massive as the sun, but it is […]
The general belief surrounding black holes is that they’re massive, but vicious matter gobbling cosmic objects. While it’s true the reputation of black holes as destroyers precede them, we should not forget that they fill an important role in the Universe as creators. Scientists now know that black holes are inexorably linked with galaxies, lying […]
Early galaxies were very different from those we see today – it was overgrown black holes, and not stars that lit them up, claims a new study; in it, it is suggested that these obese black holes were numerous and bright enough that we should be able to detect them now, billions of years […]
In an unexpected discovery, astronomers have surprised a supermassive black hole that had been dormant for the past decades “waking up” and feasting upon an unsuspecting planet that had drifted too close to its event horizon. The mass of the planet hints towards a giant Jupiter or a small brown dwarf. Also, a similar event […]
Astronomers have made the first accurate measurement of a supermassive black hole’s spin, providing new insights that might help scientists probe the mysteries the surround them. Supermassive black holes have an incredibly huge gravitational pull that doesn’t let anything in its surroundings escape its hungry maw, be it dust, rock or even light. Some are […]
