Scientists have used artificial intelligence to construct a three-dimensional model of an energetic outburst, or outburst, that occurred around the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). This 3D model could help scientists get a clearer picture of the tumultuous environment that forms around supermassive black holes in general. The material swirling around … Read more
An artist’s impression of a black hole, which is formed when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle (ESA / Hubble, Digitized Sky Survey / Nick Risinger / N Bartmann / Durham University) The largest known black hole in the Milky Way, excluding the supermassive black hole at the center of … Read more
The Milky Way has a large newly discovered black hole, and it’s lurking close to Earth! This sleeping giant was discovered with the European space telescope Gaia, which tracks the movement of billions of stars in our Milky Way. Stellar-mass black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses. The new … Read more
A black hole illustration with two black holes within one. Black holes are monstrous and monolithic regions of space and time that have captured the imagination of humanity. Some are created by the death and collapse of a massive star – and yet no star can produce the most enormous black holes. These are the … Read more
Scientists have discovered the gruesome secret behind the apparent youth of some stars at the heart of the Milky Way — stars that are participating in a kind of cosmic demolition derby around our Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*. Like a cosmic version of 17th-century serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, who … Read more
A new study of a rare and short-lived type of galaxy has revealed that such objects harbor dormant supermassive black holes that briefly awaken to tear apart a massive star and devour its remains like a giant cosmic breakfast. ‘Compact Symmetric Objects’ or CSOs are active galaxies from which two jets emerge at almost the … Read more
Event Horizon telescope Claim: A photo shared online in March 2024 shows the first image in polarized light of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way. Judgement: Rating: true Context: The photo showed the first image in polarized light of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way … Read more
A faltering supermassive black hole has alerted astronomers to a whole new type of black hole behavior. In 2020, a previously silent black hole suddenly erupted at the heart of a galaxy about 800 million light-years from Earth, and with a mass equivalent to 50 million suns, brightening the material around it by a factor … Read more
Astronomers have captured the first image of polarized light and the magnetic fields surrounding Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milly Way. The historic observation made with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has revealed that the neatly arranged magnetic fields resemble those around the supermassive black hole at … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered an ‘extremely red’ supermassive black hole growing in the shadowy early universe. The red hue of the supermassive black hole, seen as it appeared about 700 million years after the Big Bang, is the result of the expanding universe. As the universe moves outward in … Read more