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
Enlarge / The Milky Way’s central black hole is in a very crowded environment. Supermassive black holes are voracious. Clumps of dust and gas are often disrupted by turbulence and radiation when they get pulled too close. So why are some of them orbiting the edge of the Milky Way’s own supermassive monster, Sgr A*? … Read more
This still from the simulation shows a supermassive black hole, or quasar, surrounded by a swirling disk of material called an accretion disk. Credit: Caltech/Phil Hopkins group A team of astrophysicists led by Caltech has for the first time successfully simulated the journey of primordial gas from the early universe to the stage where it … Read more
Forget the “little green men” — it’s the “little red dots” in the early universe that caught the attention of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The strange red bodies, scientists say, hide stars that models suggest are “too old” to have existed in early cosmic times and black holes thousands of times more massive … Read more
A black hole discovered in Cosmic Dawn is simply too big to easily explain. It is located at the center of a galaxy called J1120+0641 and has a mass of over a billion suns. There are larger black holes all around us today. The problem is the when of the existence of J1120+0641. Less than … Read more
Scientists have discovered that unusually large black holes appear to be absent from the Milky Way’s diffuse outer halo. The discovery could spell bad news for theories that suggest the most mysterious form of “stuff” in the universe, dark matter, consists of primordial black holes that formed in the first moments after the Big Bang. … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at the “cosmic dawn” that appears impossibly massive. The confusion stems from the fact that this giant void doesn’t appear to have been feeding on much surrounding matter at the time – but to reach its immense size, you’d expect it … Read more
The monster black hole The center of our Milky Way can unleash huge, gaseous explosions – and now astronomers think they’ve found the exact spot where that superheated gas flows into the Milky Way. Acting as a giant exhaust vent, the newly discovered feature is a bright region of X-ray energy located nearly 700 light-years … Read more
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