Scientists have spotted the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever seen — a monster black hole that’s devouring a sun’s-worth of material every day. The brightly burning object, named J0529-4351, weighs between 17 billion and 19 billion solar masses and is located 12 billion light-years from Earth — meaning it dates to a time when the … Read more
Astronomers have discovered hundreds of strange, stringlike structures at the center of our galaxy, possibly tracing the violent path of an ancient black hole eruption. According to new research published June 2 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, each of these previously unknown “filaments” measures between 5 and 10 light-years in length — thousands of times … Read more
Astronomers have discovered one of the largest black holes ever found — an ultramassive monster roughly 30 billion times the mass of the sun — using a space-time trick predicted by Albert Einstein. The colossal black hole, which lurks 2.7 billion light-years from Earth in the brightest galaxy of the galaxy cluster Abell 1201, was … Read more
Glimpsed only occasionally at the hearts of massive clusters of galaxies, ultramassive black holes are some of the largest and most elusive objects in the universe. These black hole behemoths have masses exceeding that of 10 billion suns, making them far more monstrous than even the supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies … Read more
Astronomers have spotted a runaway supermassive black hole, seemingly ejected from its home galaxy and racing through space with a chain of stars trailing in its wake. According to the team’s research, which was published April 6 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (opens in new tab), the discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive … Read more
An elusive object in space has posed a riddle for scientists. It looks like a black hole. It acts like a black hole. It may even smell like a black hole. But it has one crucial difference: It has no event horizon, meaning that you can escape its gravitational clutches if you try hard enough. … Read more
Black holes form natural time machines that allow travel to both the past and the future. But don’t expect to be heading back to visit the dinosaurs any time soon. At present, we don’t have spacecraft that could get us anywhere near a black hole. But, even leaving that small detail aside, attempting to travel into … Read more
Black holes are some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe. This is partially because the equations of general relativity that we use to understand them break down when studying black holes’ ultra-dense centers. However, a new paper shows how astronomers could one day overcome this challenge by using gravitational waves to “see” inside … Read more
Astronomers have spotted a black hole mysteriously spewing up chunks of a devoured star several years after consuming it. The event, which scientists have classified as AT2018hyz, began in 2018 when astronomers saw the black hole ensnare a hapless star in its strong gravitational pull before shredding it to pieces. Then, three years later, in … Read more
Two of the strangest, most colossal structures in the Milky Way may have formed in a 100,000-year-long explosion at our galaxy’s center, new research suggests. Those structures — named the Fermi bubbles and eROSITA bubbles after the respective telescopes that discovered them — straddle the Milky Way’s center in an enormous hourglass shape, with one … Read more
