Mystery Object in Deep Space Is Confounding Astronomers
A team of scientists found a compact object 40,000 light-years from Earth that is either a very massive neutron star or an itsy-bitsy black hole, but they’re not sure which.…
Meet the ‘Event Horizon Explorer’, Which Aims to See Light Rings Around Black Holes
Astronomers transfixed the public in April 2019 when they released the first-ever image of a black hole, produced by radio wave data from a collaboration of telescopes around the world…
Researchers want to use gravitational waves to learn about dark matter
When two sufficiently massive objects collide — such as when two black holes merge — the forces can actually bend space-time, creating ripples called gravitational waves. These gravitational waves can…
Breakthrough Gravitational Wave Findings Suggest Supermassive Black Holes Are Constantly Warping Spacetime
Astronomers and astrophysicists at five different pulsar timing array collaborations today announced data that strongly suggests the presence of a gravitational wave background: a constant murmur of low-frequency ripples in…
Massive Black Holes Littered the Early Universe, Simulation Suggests
Since the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein were first detected in 2015, astrophysicists have been pondering the gravitational wave background—the cumulative undulations of these spacetime ripples as they cross the…
Supermassive black hole spews out jet of matter in first-of-its-kind image
As well as pulling in anything which comes to close to them, black holes can occasionally expel matter at very high speeds. When clouds of dust and gas approach the…
These supermassive black holes are cozying up close together
At the center of most galaxies lies a single monster: a supermassive black hole, with a mass millions or even billions of times that of the sun. These lonely beasts…
See NASA’s visualizations of black holes for Black Hole Week
NASA has shared a selection of some of the best visualizations of black holes, so you can get an idea of what these mind-bending phenomena are like.
‘Closest black hole’ isn’t actually a black hole, but a stellar vampire
In 2020, astronomers announced they had found the closest black hole ever. But new research suggests that the object in question in not actually a black hole.
Astronomers spot two black holes colliding in epic merger
Astronomers have spotted a pair of black holes which are heading for an epic collision.