Space and astronomy news
Supermassive Black Holes are Nature’s confounding behemoths. It’s difficult for Earth-bound minds to comprehend their magnitude and power. Astrophysicists have spent decades studying them, and they’ve made progress. But one problem still baffles even them: the Final Parsec Problem.
New research might have solved the problem, and dark matter plays a role in the solution.
Continue reading “A Solution to the “Final Parsec Problem?””
In the beginning, the Universe was all primordial gas. Somehow, some of it was swept up into supermassive black holes (SMBHs), the gargantuan singularities that reside at the heart of galaxies. The details of how that happened and how SMBHs accumulate mass are some of astrophysics’ biggest questions.
Continue reading “Black Holes Dominate Large Regions of Space, But They’re Mysterious”
When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched at the end of 2021, we expected stunning images and illuminating scientific results. So far, the powerful space telescope has lived up to our expectations. The JWST has shown us things about the early Universe we never anticipated.
Some of those results are forcing a rewrite of astronomy textbooks.
Continue reading “The JWST is Re-Writing Astronomy Textbooks”
Some Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) consume vast quantities of gas and dust, triggering brilliant light shows that can outshine an entire galaxy. But others are much more sedate, emitting faint but steady light from their home in the heart of their galaxy.
Observations from the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope help show why that is.
Continue reading “Not All Black Holes are Ravenous Gluttons”
The region near the Milky Way’s centre is dominated by the supermassive black hole that resides there. Sagittarius A*’s overwhelming gravity creates a chaotic region where tightly packed, high-speed stars crash into one another like cars in a demolition derby.
These collisions and glancing blows change the stars forever. Some become strange, stripped-down, low-mass stars, while others gain new life.
Continue reading “The Stellar Demolition Derby in the Centre of the Galaxy”
We can’t see them directly, but we know they’re there. Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) likely dwell at the center of every large galaxy. Their overwhelming gravity draws material toward them, where it collects in an accretion disk, waiting its turn to cross the event horizon into oblivion.
But in one galaxy, the SMBH has choked on its meal and spit it out, sending material away at high speeds and clearing out the entire neighbourhood.
Continue reading “A Black Hole Has Cleared Out Its Neighbourhood”
Astronomers working with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have spotted something unusual. The observatory’s X-Ray Telescope (XRT) has captured emissions from a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. The black hole is repeatedly feeding on an unfortunate star that came too close.
Continue reading “A Black Hole Nibbles on a Star Every 22 Days, Slowly Consuming it”
In astronomy, we speak casually of extremely large numbers and extremely vast distances as if they’re trivial. A supermassive black hole can have several billion solar masses, a distant quasar is 500 million light-years away, etc. Objects like galaxies that are mere tens of millions of light years away start to seem familiar.
But even though our Wikipedia pages are full of data on distant objects, there’s a deceptive lack of understanding of some of their basic properties. Take Messier 87, for example, a galaxy often talked about and seen in images. It’s noteworthy for being home to the first black hole ever imaged.
It’s so far away that astronomers have no real idea what its three-dimensional shape is.
Continue reading “M87 Galaxy Reconstructed in Thrilling 3D”
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) lurk in the center of large galaxies like ours. From their commanding position in the galaxy’s heart, they feed on gas, dust, stars, and anything else that strays too close, growing more massive as time passes. But in rare circumstances, an SMBH can be forced out of its position and hurtle through space as a rogue SMBH.
Continue reading “Astronomers Spot a Rogue Supermassive Black Hole, Hurtling Through Space Leaving Star Formation in its Wake”
Black holes swallow everything—including light—which explains why we can’t see them. But we can observe their immediate surroundings and learn about them. And when they’re on a feeding binge, their surroundings become even more luminous and observable.
This increased luminosity allowed astronomers to find a black hole that was feasting on material only 800 million years after the Universe began.
Continue reading “Hungry Black Hole was Already Feasting 800 Million Years After the Big Bang”