A beautiful, bejeweled halo of warped light generated by a monstrous black hole takes center stage in one of the latest James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. The luminous loop, which looks strikingly like a “Einstein ring“, is decorated with four points of light, but not all of them are real. The star-studded halo in … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have observed the dramatic “dance” between a supermassive black hole and two satellite galaxies. The observations could help scientists better understand how galaxies and supermassive black holes grew in the early universe. This particular supermassive black hole is feeding on surrounding matter, powering a bright quasar that … Read more
The rate at which the universe is expanding is accelerating across the cosmos, driven by a mysterious force known as dark energy. However, new research suggests that this may not be the case at the edges of black holes. Rather than suggesting that dark energy does not act at the boundaries of black holes, this … Read more
Artist’s impression of the bright core region of a quasar, an active galaxy. The supermassive black hole at the center is surrounded by a bright disk of gas and dust. The dust component further away can obscure the view of the interior and shines mainly in the mid-infrared range, light that can be analyzed by … Read more
Stars near the center of our galaxy could be forever fueled by dark matter, according to a team of astronomers who recently studied the distant light sources. Florida family sues NASA over home damaged by space debris The group of stars, known as S-cluster stars, are located just three light-years from the center of the … Read more
A bright quasar, powered by a supermassive black hole, emits radiation that pushes clouds of gas away from its surroundings, generating winds at speeds of about 58 million kilometers per hour. Oh, and the quasar is also almost as old as the universe itself. The discovery, made by a team of scientists led by astronomers … Read more
Astronomers are witnessing a never-before-seen spectacle in the cosmos: the awakening of a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. In late 2019, a team of astronomers took note of an otherwise unremarkable galaxy called SDSS1335+0728, located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. A sudden spike in the galaxy’s brightness … Read more
The upcoming Roman space telescope could reveal a new class of ‘feather-light’ black holes, challenging existing theories of black hole formation. If these Earth-sized black holes are found, they could have significant implications for our knowledge of the early universe and the nature of dark matter. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center NASAby Nancy Grace … Read more
A recent study from the ARC Center of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics suggests that neutron stars could play a crucial role in understanding dark matter. The study found that when dark matter particles collide into neutron stars, they can quickly heat these stars, potentially making them observable with future astronomical technologies. This rapid … Read more
Image of a primordial black hole forming amid a sea of ​​hot, color-charged quarks and gluons a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Credit: Kaća Bradonjić According to the researchers, the universe could have produced microscopic black holes with enormous amounts of nuclear charge in the first quintillionth of a second. MIT … Read more