A gigantic explosion that shook part of Russia more than a century ago has never been categorically explained. And yet, some scientists believe this could be the result of a very close encounter with a mysterious form of black hole. The extraordinary explosion occurred just after 7 a.m. on June 30, 1980, over the Podkamennaya … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. For about fifty years, the scientific community has been grappling with a substantial problem: there isn’t enough visible matter in the universe. All the matter we can see — stars, planets, cosmic dust and everything … Read more
Researchers delve into a synthetic universe to help us better understand the real universe. Using supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, scientists have created nearly 4 million simulated images of the cosmos from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by NSF (the … Read more
Westerlund 1 is the largest and closest ‘super’ star cluster to Earth. New data from NASA’s Chandra These are the first data released publicly from a project called the Extended Westerlund 1 and 2 Open Clusters Survey, or EWOCS, led by astronomers at Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics in Palermo. As part of EWOCS, Chandra … Read more
A team of astronomers has managed to remotely calculate the speed of rotation of a supermassive black hole thanks to the object’s chance encounter with a star, which instantly destroyed it. How will time travel change Perry in Outer Range Season 2? All black holes have spin, which they develop through their interactions with other … Read more
Rather than dying dramatically in a massive supernova explosion, some large stars may die quietly and without fanfare. This could explain the mysterious and sudden disappearance of certain stars from the night sky that astronomers have noticed over the years, according to a new article in the journal Physical Assessment Letters. These massive stars can … Read more