Black Hole

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered compelling evidence of massive black holes in the early universe, some apparently heading toward mergers. The discovery, published August 31 in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, sheds light on how supermassive black holes may have grown so…

Physics allows for black holes far smaller than the enormous objects typically found at the centers of galaxies or created when massive stars collapse. Under the right conditions, microscopic black holes could also form when spacetime enters an unusual critical state and organizes into a repeating, crystal-like pattern. Researchers from…

The cosmos may be speckled with black hole stars, celestial entities that have the properties of both black holes and stars. But only now have scientists discovered one for the first time, which could provide important insight about our universe. The Week Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind…

The mysterious objects spotted in the early Universe may not be isolated points of light after all. A new analysis of images of 217 ‘little red dots’ from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope suggests they sit inside remarkably compact, star-forming galaxies. Little red dots may reside in small galaxies…

Most galaxies are thought to harbor a supermassive black hole at their center. These enormous objects can weigh millions or even billions of times more than the sun, creating some of the strongest gravitational environments known in the universe. When a star passes dangerously close to one of these black…

The universe is full of cool and interesting things, like black hole stars and nightmare planets that get scorched by their host star. Now researchers have found a star that moves ridiculously fast, and it’s right in our celestial backyard, whipping around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Say hello…

Most galaxies have at their center a supermassive black hole, whose mass ranges from millions to billions of times that of our Sun. Although its gravity is intense, not every star that gets too close is destroyed, and some stars do survive multiple near encounters, growing brighter each time. These…

An illustration of a hypothetical dark star supermassive black hole seed in the early universe. (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)) A mysterious hum of gravitational waves that fills the cosmos may be the echo of "dark stars" that served as the seeds of the first supermassive black holes.…

A team of astronomers has just detected the fastest star in the galaxy. Its anomalous speed has a more unsettling explanation: It orbits Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the mass of which is equivalent to four million times that of the sun.…

Astronomers have found the most promising candidate yet for a "black hole star," a new type of astrophysical object lurking in the early universe's "cosmic dawn." If confirmed, the findings could help to unravel the mysterious origin of " little red dots " (LRDs), an infamous group of hundreds of…