Black Holes News

July 19, 2024

Top Headlines

Another Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Discovered at the Center of Our Galaxy

July 18, 2024 — So far, only about ten intermediate-mass black holes have been discovered in the entire universe. The newly identified black hole causes surrounding stars in a cluster to move in an unexpectedly orderly ...

Sun-Like Stars Found Orbiting Hidden Companions

July 16, 2024 — Astronomers have uncovered what appear to be 21 neutron stars in orbit around stars like our Sun. The discovery is surprising because it is not clear how a star that exploded winds up next to a star like our ...

Bizarre 'Garden Sprinkler-Like' Jet Is Spotted Shooting out of Neutron Star

July 16, 2024 — A strange 'garden sprinkler-like' jet coming from a neutron star has been pictured for the first time. The S-shaped structure is created as the jet changes direction due to the wobbling of the disc of hot gas around the star -- a process called ...

How the 'Heart and Lungs' of a Galaxy Extend Its Life

July 12, 2024 — Galaxies avoid an early death because they have a 'heart and lungs' which effectively regulate their 'breathing' and prevent them growing out of control, a new study suggests. If they didn't, the universe would have aged much faster than it has and ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:58pm EDT

Strong Evidence for Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Omega Centauri

July 10, 2024 — Most known black holes are either extremely massive, like the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, or relatively lightweight, with a mass of under 100 times that of the ...

Tiny Bright Objects Discovered at Dawn of Universe Baffle Scientists

June 28, 2024 — A recent discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) confirmed that luminous, very red objects previously detected in the early universe upend conventional thinking about the origins and ...

A Hidden Treasure in the Milky Way -- Astronomers Uncover Ultrabright X-Ray Source

June 24, 2024 — Astronomers uncovered that a well-known X-ray binary, whose exact nature has been a mystery to scientists until now, is actually a hidden ...

Supermassive Black Hole Appears to Grow Like a Baby Star

June 20, 2024 — Supermassive black holes pose unanswered questions for astronomers around the world, not least 'How do they grow so big?' Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a powerful rotating, ...

Astronomers See a Massive Black Hole Awaken in Real Time

June 18, 2024 — In late 2019 the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers have used data from several space and ground-based ...

Pair of Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn

June 17, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered a double-record-breaking pair of quasars. Not only are they the most distant pair of merging quasars ever found, but also the only pair confirmed in the bygone era of the ...

Wind from Black Holes May Influence Development of Surrounding Galaxies

June 11, 2024 — Clouds of gas in a distant galaxy are being pushed faster and faster -- at more than 10,000 miles per second -- out among neighboring stars by blasts of radiation from the supermassive black hole at ...

How Do Supermassive Black Holes Get Super Massive?

June 11, 2024 — By combining forefront X-ray observations with state-of-the-art supercomputer simulations of the buildup of galaxies over cosmic history, researchers have provided the best modeling to date of the ...

Exotic Black Holes Could Be a Byproduct of Dark Matter

June 6, 2024 — In the first quintillionth of a second, the universe may have sprouted microscopic black holes with enormous amounts of nuclear charge, MIT physicists propose. The gravitational pull from these tiny, ...

Medium and Mighty: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Can Survive in Globular Clusters

May 30, 2024 — New research demonstrated a possible formation mechanism of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters, star clusters that could contain tens ...

Earlier Headlines

The Case of the Missing Black Holes

May 29, 2024 — Researchers have applied the well-understood and highly verified quantum field theory, usually applied to the study of the very small, to a new target, the early universe. Their exploration led to ...

Using Wobbling Stellar Material, Astronomers Measure the Spin of a Supermassive Black Hole for the First Time

May 22, 2024 — Astronomers have a new way to measure how fast a black hole spins, by using the wobbly aftermath from its stellar feasting. The results offer a new way to probe supermassive black holes and their ...

Complete Stellar Collapse: Unusual Star System Proves That Stars Can Die Quietly

May 21, 2024 — University of Copenhagen astrophysicists help explain a mysterious phenomenon, whereby stars suddenly vanish from the night sky. Their study of an unusual binary star system has resulted in ...

Iron Fingerprints in Nearby Active Galaxy

May 8, 2024 — After starting science operations in February, Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) studied the monster black hole at the center of galaxy NGC ...

Astronomers Observe Elusive Stellar Light Surrounding Ancient Quasars

May 6, 2024 — Astronomers observed the elusive starlight surrounding some of the earliest quasars in the universe. The findings may shed light on how the earliest supermassive black holes became so massive despite ...

Hubble Views a Galaxy With a Voracious Black Hole

May 6, 2024 — Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 ...

Researchers Advance Detection of Gravitational Waves to Study Collisions of Neutron Stars and Black Holes

Apr. 26, 2024 — Researchers co-led a study that will improve the detection of gravitational waves--ripples in space and ...

AI and Physics Combine to Reveal the 3D Structure of a Flare Erupting Around a Black Hole

Apr. 22, 2024 — Based on radio telescope data and models of black hole physics, a team has used neural networks to reconstruct a 3D image that shows how explosive flare-ups in the disk of gas around our supermassive ...

Most Massive Stellar Black Hole in Our Galaxy Found

Apr. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because ...

Chemical Reactions Can Scramble Quantum Information as Well as Black Holes

Apr. 5, 2024 — A team of researchers has shown that molecules can be as formidable at scrambling quantum information as black holes by combining mathematical tools from black hole physics and chemical physics and ...

Stellar Collisions Produce Strange, Zombie-Like Survivors

Apr. 4, 2024 — Densely packed, fast-moving stars at the Milky Way's center can collide with each other. New research uses simulations to explore the outcomes of these collisions. Some collisions are more like ...

Persistent Hiccups in a Far-Off Galaxy Draw Astronomers to New Black Hole Behavior

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light years away, has suddenly erupted, giving off plumes of gas every 8.5 days ...

Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way's Central Black Hole

Mar. 27, 2024 — A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). ...

'Cosmic Cannibals' Expel Jets Into Space at 40 Percent the Speed of Light

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have measured the speed of fast-moving jets in space, crucial to star formation and the distribution of elements needed for life. The jets of matter, expelled by stars deemed 'cosmic ...

Sleeping Supermassive Black Holes Awakened Briefly by Shredded Stars

Mar. 26, 2024 — Astronomers have concluded that an obscure class of galaxies known as Compact Symmetric Objects, or CSOs, are not young as previously thought but rather lead relatively short ...

Quantum Tornado Provides Gateway to Understanding Black Holes

Mar. 20, 2024 — Scientists have created a giant quantum vortex to mimic a black hole in superfluid helium that has allowed them to see in greater detail how analogue black holes behave and interact with their ...

Largest-Ever Map of Universe's Active Supermassive Black Holes Released

Mar. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ...

Finding New Physics in Debris from Colliding Neutron Stars

Mar. 6, 2024 — Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to ...

What Makes Black Holes Grow and New Stars Form? Machine Learning Helps Solve the Mystery

Mar. 5, 2024 — It takes more than a galaxy merger to make a black hole grow and new stars form: machine learning shows cold gas is needed too to initiate rapid growth -- new research ...

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

Mar. 4, 2024 — Looking deeply into space and time, astronomers have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years ...