Recent studies have dealt a major blow to the hypothesis that primordial black holes could be responsible for dark matter, shifting the focus of scientific research to alternative explanations. Overview of the research Two pivotal studies have explored the possibility of this original black holeswhich is believed to have formed in the early universe, could … Read more
Credit: AI-generated image A physicist who studies black holes has discovered that in an expanding universe, Einstein’s equations require that the rate of expansion of the universe at the event horizon of each black hole must be constant, and the same for all black holes. This in turn means that the only energy on the … Read more
Artist’s impression of a microlensing event caused by a black hole observed from Earth towards the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light from a background star in the GMC is diffracted by a putative primordial black hole (lens) in the Milky Way’s halo and magnified when observed from Earth. Microlensing produces very characteristic variations in the … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at “cosmic dawn” that appears impossibly massive. The confusion stems from the fact that it doesn’t appear that this gigantic void was feasting on much surrounding matter at the time – but to reach its immense size you would expect it … 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
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
This article was reviewed according to Science fact checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread OK! Artist’s impression of a microlensing event caused by a black hole observed from Earth towards the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light from a background star in the GMC is diffracted by a putative primordial black hole (lens) in the Milky … Read more
This article was reviewed according to Science fact checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread OK! For the past seventy years, astrophysicists have theorized the existence of ‘kugelblitze’, black holes caused by extremely high concentrations of light. They speculated that these special black holes may be related to astronomical phenomena such as dark matter, and that … Read more
The cosmic puzzle created by evidence of apparently enormous black holes in the very early universe continues to deepen. Observations by the JWST of one such anomaly, known as J1120+0641, indicate that the once favored explanation for how these objects could emit so much light so soon after the Big Bang is unlikely, forcing astronomers … Read more