9 Things You Didn’t Know About Black Holes
An artist’s impression of GRB 221009A, which may have heralded the birth of a black hole.Image: NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde Black holes. Despite their names, the enigmatic objects are opposite of vacuous.…
Behold: The Oldest Black Hole Ever Found
A team of researchers found a black hole from the early universe, prompting new questions as to how such ancient massive objects might form. The black hole dates to about…
The Heart of the Milky Way Glows With Unprecedented Detail in New Webb Image
The center of our galaxy is a menagerie of exotic objects; a supermassive black hole, clouds of hot gas, and giant stars that can help inform the origin story of…
X-Ray Telescope Spots Black Hole Slowly Devouring a Star
On June 22, 2022, NASA’s Swift Observatory spotted something curious in a galaxy over 500 million light-years away. It was a routine outburst of gas that a team studying the…
Webb Telescope Data Suggests There May Not Be a Ton of Supermassive Black Holes
A team of researchers scrutinizing the Extended Groth Strip, a region of space between the constellations Ursa Major and Boötes, saw fewer growing supermassive black holes and less dust than…
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…
Scientists Propose Webb Telescope Has Detected Stars Powered by Dark Matter
Astronomers looking at ancient light seen by the Webb Space Telescope have found three pinpricks that they think could be “dark stars,” theoretical objects powered by dark matter. First Full-Color…
Astronomers Surprised By a Distant Black Hole Roaring Back to Life
Black holes often sit at the centers of galaxies, where they can gorge themselves on the superheated material that falls into their abyssal event horizons. Now, a team of astronomers…
Webb Space Telescope Discovers Farthest Active Supermassive Black Hole Known
Astronomers imaging the cosmos with the Webb Space Telescope have found the most distant active supermassive black hole yet. The black hole was “seen” as it was around 570 million…
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…