Wild Theory Suggests Dark Matter Could Make Stars Immortal
Stars very close to the center of our galaxy could be fueled by dark matter in perpetuity, according to a team of astronomers who recently studied the distant light sources.…
Astronomers Witness a Supermassive Black Hole Roaring to Life
Five years ago, a galaxy 300 million light-years away got a lot brighter in telescopes, radiating ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light out into space. This year, the resurgent galaxy started…
Pair of Merging Quasars Reveals Secrets of the Universe’s Earliest Days
A team of astronomers has spotted the most distant merging galactic cores yet, seen as they were when the universe was less than a billion years old. The duo of…
Spin of Supermassive Black Hole Measured at a Quarter the Speed of Light
An artist’s impression of Gilese 12 b in orbit around its red dwarf host star.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC) A newly discovered exoplanet, with its surface temperature estimated to be remarkably…
Groundbreaking Measurement Reveals a Black Hole Spinning at a Quarter the Speed of Light
A team of astronomers has managed to calculate the speed of a distant supermassive black hole’s spin thanks to the object’s chance meeting with a star—which it promptly destroyed. How…
NASA 360-degree video shows what it’s like to plunge into a black hole
If you were having a bad day, plunging into a black hole would be enough to really top it off. Apparently, you’d experience a process known as “spaghettification” in which…
Astronomers Discover Heaviest Stellar Black Hole in the Milky Way
The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Milky Way, but a newly spotted object takes the crown for the most…
New Image Exposes Intense Magnetic Field of the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
A new image of our galaxy’s central black hole reveals the magnetic field surrounding the object in polarized light. The image reveals how gas and superheated matter in the immediate…
This App Points You Straight at the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
If you want to stay grounded—which is to say, you want a haunting reminder of your own diminutive size and mortality—do I have the tool for you. Meet Galactic Compass:…
Fastest-Growing Black Hole Is Eating a Sun Per Day
Our Sun is about 330,000 times the mass of Earth, yet it is dwarfed by the black holes that lurk at the centers of galaxies. A team of astronomers recently…