Astrophysics (Page 5)

Latest in Astrophysics

For the first time, astronomers have detected three supermassive black holes at the core of a galaxy — and the discovery could solve a universal mystery.

Astronomers Spot First Galaxy With Three Supermassive Black Holes

By Kristin Houser

New research has determined that nearly extreme black holes can have "hair" — but the defining characteristic doesn't last long.

Physicists Finally Find a Way to Tell Certain Black Holes Apart

By Kristin Houser

A group of scientists are suggesting that supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies are surrounded by, and devour, much smaller "baby black holes."

Baby Black Holes May be Orbiting Supermassive Black Holes

By Victor Tangermann

NASA found a weak supermassive black hole in the Phoenix Cluster billions of light years away that is not strong enough to stop stars from forming.

NASA Finds Supermassive Black Hole Birthing Stars at “Furious Rate”

By Victor Tangermann

Nobel-winning cosmologist James Peebles argues that we need a better way to describe how the beginning of the universe happened than the "Big Bang."

Nobel-Winning Scientist: I Have No Idea if the Big Bang Happened

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists spotted a runaway star traveling across the galaxy so rapidly that it will never return and traced its path back to our supermassive black hole.

A Supermassive Black Hole Yeeted This Star at 3.7 Million MPH

By Dan Robitzski

An online calculator shows what would happen if a black hole gulped down the Earth or any other objects floating around in space.

Here’s What Would Happen if Earth Collided With a Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers claim to have spotted a tiny black hole that's only 20 kilometers across. That's tiny.

Astronomers Spot Black Hole the Size of Manhattan

By Victor Tangermann

While studying hypersonic jet propulsion, a team of engineers stumbled upon the mechanism that could've led to the Big Bang.

Scientists Accidentally Recreate Big Bang Detonation in the Lab

By Kristin Houser

In a new study, a team of astronomers from Ohio State University claim to have discovered an entirely new and previously missing class of black holes.

Scientists Discover New Class of Tiny Black Holes

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists just publicly presented the first ever images of the German space agency's (DLR) X-ray telescope eROSITA. And they're magnificent.

Here Are The First-Ever Images From the Dark Matter Telescope

By Victor Tangermann

In a paper, NASA scientist Jeremy Schnittman argues that it's pretty unlikely planets that orbit black holes could harbor life.

NASA Scientist Ponders Life on Planets Orbiting Black Holes

By Victor Tangermann

Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope are upping the ante: they just announced plans to capture real-time video of our galaxy's central black hole.

Scientists Plan to Capture a Feasting Black Hole on Video

By Dan Robitzski

New calculations of the universe's outward expansion only make sense if it turns out that some black holes are actually giant blobs of dark energy.

Some Black Holes May Actually Be Blobs of Dark Energy

By Dan Robitzski

A team of NASA scientists have caught three supermassive black holes in the act of merging together a measly one billion light-years away from Earth.

Three Supermassive Black Holes Are About to Collide

By Victor Tangermann

A rare glimpse of a supermassive black hole obliterating a star in what's called a Tidal Disruption Event could help astrophysicists understand the cosmos.

Astronomers Just Watched a Black Hole Shred a Star

By Dan Robitzski

Researchers Researchers are suggesting that in the orbit of the Milky Way's sun may be a free-floating "primordial black hole" — or even more than one.are suggesting that the Sun's orbit might have captured a free-floating "primordial black hole" — or even more than one.

Astrophysicists: There May Be Black Holes Orbiting Our Sun

By Jon Christian

NASA’s New Black Hole Simulation Will Completely Melt Your Brain

NASA’s New Black Hole Simulation Will Completely Melt Your Brain

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists can finally take a closer look at the big, radioactive bubbles our galaxy's black hole burped out millions of years ago.

Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Lets out Two Giant, Radioactive Burps

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists just traced the path of a runaway star, first spotted in the 80s, back to its original home and learned it got cast away by a black hole.

A Runaway Star Is Escaping a Black Hole at 1.2 Million MPH

By Dan Robitzski

A team of scientists discovered that the black hole at the center of the Milky Away appears to be unusually hungry based on how brightly it's glowing.

Uh Oh: The Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Is “Getting Hungrier”

By Dan Robitzski

For the first time, astronomers recorded the gravitational waves given off by the formation of a new black hole.

Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves From Newborn Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

A team of scientists is preparing to release a world first: video footage of an enormous black hole devouring vast clouds of gas.

Astronomers Say They’ll Soon Release First Video of a Black Hole

By Jon Christian

Scientists think they've detected a bizarre black hole that, at 100 times the mass of our sun, is twice the theoretical size limit.

Spotted: A Black Hole That Shouldn’t Be Physically Possible

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers observed the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way called Sagittarius A* flare up growing 75 times brighter than usual.

The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Just Did Something Wild

By Victor Tangermann

New research suggests that dark matter was already there before the Big Bang occurred, altering our understanding of the history of the universe.

New Research: There May Have Been Dark Matter Before Big Bang

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers Just Spotted One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever

Astronomers Just Spotted One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever

By Victor Tangermann

Extremely bright objects that first appeared close to the Big Bang — theoretical objects called "dark stars" — could have seeded supermassive black holes.

These Bizarre Objects May Have “Seeded” Supermassive Black Holes

By Victor Tangermann

Some galaxies called blue nuggets are unusually tiny but house gargantuan black holes. Astronomers finally think they know why.

Scientists Unraveled Why Some Tiny Galaxies Have Huge Black Holes

By Dan Robitzski

A new study suggests that tiny amounts of dark matter could behave like high-speed projectiles, capable of tearing through human flesh.

Study: “Dark Matter Bullets” Could Tear Human Flesh Apart

By Victor Tangermann

A distant black hole is surrounded by a much larger disk of spacestuff than scientists expected, giving them a rare glimpse of special relativity in action.

This Might Be the Strangest Black Hole Yet

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers discovered two distant supermassive black holes on a crash course with each other. They hope to learn whether such mergers are possible.

Two Supermassive Black Holes Are on a Devastating Crash Course

By Dan Robitzski

NASA just awarded SpaceX with a launch services contract to launch NASA's Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission in 2021.

SpaceX Scores NASA Contract to Launch Black Hole Spacecraft

By Victor Tangermann

When the ESA launches LISA, a constellation of gravitational wave-detecting satellites, it will likely be able to spot new exoplanets across the galaxy.

Gravitational Waves

Gravitational Wave Detector May Find Exoplanets in Nearby Galaxies

By Dan Robitzski

Instead of creating "dead zones," the radiation from black holes could facilitate the emergence of life on a nearby planet, according to a Harvard study.

Harvard Scientists: Radiation From Black Holes May Create Life

By Kristin Houser

A new NASA study reveals why the Milky Way's black hole is so tranquil: a powerful and unique magnetic field is holding it at bay.

Here’s What’s Keeping the Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole at Bay

By Dan Robitzski

A new model reveals that black holes could take in a steady stream of antimatter particles that gradually chip away until the black hole dissipates.

New Research Reveals That Black Holes Can Die

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers just got their best look at the swirling layers of gas that orbit the black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Something Is Blocking the View of Our Galaxy’s Giant Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

A team of researchers has produced the most detailed black hole simulations ever — and then used them to solve a 40+ year mystery.

Scientists Produce Most Precise Black Hole Simulations Ever

By Kristin Houser

There might be another universe, exactly like our own — except that it's a perfect mirror image. And it could explain dark matter.

Bizarre Theory: “Mirror-Image Universe” Could Explain Dark Matter

By Jon Christian

Physicists created a sonic black hole in the lab and then took its temperature — and the measurement seems to confirm a prediction made by Stephen Hawking.

Scientists Just Took the Temperature of a Lab-Made Black Hole

By Kristin Houser

Astronomers are looking to get a much higher resolution shot of a black hole by sending two to three satellites into Earth orbit.

Explained: Why the Next Black Hole Image Will Be Incredible

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists at LIGO just observed the gravitational waves given off by a black hole as it consumed a neutron star for the first time.

Scientists Just Detected a Black Hole Devouring a Neutron Star

By Dan Robitzski

The black hole V404 Cygni was caught shooting plasma jets in rapidly changing directions — all while its gravitational pull dragged the fabric of spacetime.

Bizarre Black Hole “Drags” Spacetime, Blasts Wobbling Plasma Jets

By Kristin Houser

Scientists have a new plan to try and spot dark matter by searching for particular particles once the Large Hadron Collider's upgrades are complete.

When the Large Hadron Collider Turns on, It May Trap Dark Matter

By Dan Robitzski

In 2013, scientists were in the middle of studying the black hole at the center of the galaxy when a neutron star flared up and blocked their view.

A City-Sized Star Is Blocking the View of Our Galaxy’s Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

Inspired by "Frozen," scientists built an apparatus that detects subatomic particles when they collide with supercooled water. It may help spot dark matter.

Disney’s “Frozen” Inspired New Attempt to Find Dark Matter

By Dan Robitzski

A language professor created the black hole's name, Pōwehi, by combining two words from an 18th-century Hawaiian chant called the Kumulipo.

The M87 Black Hole Now Has an Epic Name

By Kristin Houser

A team from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has shared an image that puts the first black hole photo into stunning context.

The First Black Hole Photo Is Even More Amazing When You Zoom Out

By Kristin Houser

Katie Bouman, a 29-year-old computer scientist, led the development of the algorithm that made the first black hole image possible.

We Wouldn’t Have the First Black Hole Image Without Katie Bouman

By Kristin Houser

The black hole that scientists imaged is a stellar giant. It would take millions of Earths lined up side-by-side to span its length.

Here’s How Big the M87 Black Hole Is Compared to the Earth

By Dan Robitzski

The first-ever black hole image is a blurry orange ring. During the announcement, scientists described how they're working to improve the resolution.

Scientists: Next Black Hole Image Will Be Way Clearer

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists have released the first image of a black hole, and it looks like they expected based on Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

The World’s First Black Hole Image Vindicates Einstein’s Theory

By Kristin Houser

Scientists Just Released the First-Ever Image of a Black Hole

Scientists Just Released the First-Ever Image of a Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

On Wednesday morning, an international team of scientists will release the first-ever images of black holes. Quite understandably, scientists are pumped.

Here’s Why Everyone’s so Excited About the Black Hole Image

By Dan Robitzski

The goal is to look past the space debris to see its event horizon.

Astronomers Are Teasing the First-Ever Photo of a Black Hole

By Jon Christian

An international team of researchers says it's found 83 new supermassive black holes at extreme end of the visible universe.

Astronomers Just Found 83 Giant Black Holes at Universe’s Edge

By Jon Christian

“Halo Drive” Would Use Black Holes to Power Spaceships

“Halo Drive” Would Use Black Holes to Power Spaceships

By Jon Christian

A new paper suggests that we could spot an alien civilization by looking for signs of starships powered by the radiation thrown off by small black hole.

New SETI Plan: Detect Alien Starships Powered by Black Holes

By Jon Christian

Researchers believe the strange behavior of galaxies could be caused by the combined mass of untold zillions of photons and not dark matter.

New Theory: Mass of Photons Could Explain Effects of Dark Matter

By Jon Christian

A philosopher wanted to unify the various field-specific definitions physicists have for black holes. He decided that the variety was good for science.

A Philosopher Is Trying to Figure out What Black Holes Really Are

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists say a new map of how structures of dark matter have grown throughout the life of the universe could upend current understanding of physics.

New Map of Dark Matter Breaks Scientists’ Understanding of Physics

By Jon Christian

New research suggests that supermassive black holes formed in halos of dark matter that serve as "gravitational glue" for galaxies.

New Theory: Vast, Ancient Black Holes Formed Because of Dark Matter

By Jon Christian

Researchers have captured the best-ever image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Here’s the Best-Ever Image of the Black Hole Devouring Our Galaxy

By Jon Christian