Black Hole

Faced with observations of early black holes and galaxies that weren’t expected to exist, scientists have come up with a wealth of new theories to explain them. Now they just need to figure out which ones are true. Introduction When Charlotte Mason ponders cosmic mysteries, she likes to doodle. “I…

Astronomers have found the most extreme example yet of a black hole outweighing its own galaxy, and it may be hiding clues to how the supermassive black holes seen today formed in the early universe. In a new study, astronomers directly measured the mass of a black hole sitting in…

Gigantic, ancient black hole threatens to upend cosmic history Debate still swirls around the nature of “little red dots,” black holes glimpsed in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope. A controversial new weigh-in may settle the matter By Joseph Howlett edited by Lee Billings An artist’s conception…

🛡️ Just a quick check We’re checking your connection to prevent automated abuse Read More

In 1993, Canadian physicist Matthew Choptuik demonstrated black holes may emerge spontaneously from critical collapse, during which spacetime curvatures organize themselves into a defined, repeating crystal-like pattern. But researchers weren’t quite able to describe this nicely in formulaic language—until now. A team of theoretical physicists say it’s found the long-sought…

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is officially a late show, as in it’s no longer with us. Its last Questionert has been answered; its final rescue dog has been rescued; its ultimate guest, Sir Paul McCartney, has left the building. Colbert filled his 80-minute finale with the same thoughtfulness,…

This latest Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features Messier 77 (M77), a barred spiral galaxy famous and appreciated among astronomers for its combination of relative proximity and spectacular features to study. It is located 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).…

🛡️ Just a quick check We’re checking your connection to prevent automated abuse Read More

Researchers have developed a new method to identify whether black hole mergers occurred inside dense clouds of dark matter, potentially opening a fresh avenue for studying one of astronomy’s biggest mysteries. Gravitational waves observed by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) twin detectors were produced during the final fraction of a…

Dark matter is thought to make up most of the matter in the universe, but the only way it interacts with its surroundings is through gravity. If two colliding black holes spiral through a dense region of dark matter and merge, gravitational waves rippling across space and time could carry…