Black Hole

Clues to a black hole's origins can be found in the way it spins, which is especially true for binaries — when two black holes circle close together before merging. The spin and tilt of the respective black holes just before they merge can reveal whether they arose from a…

In this illustration, light from a smaller black hole (left) curves around a larger black hole and forms an almost-mirror image on the other side. The gravity of a black hole can warp the fabric of space itself, such that light passing close to the black hole will follow a…

The cosmos seems to have a preference for things that are round. Planets and stars tend to be spheres because gravity pulls clouds of gas and dust toward the center of mass. The same holds for black holes — or, to be more precise, the event horizons of black holes…

We've all heard of black holes, and while they sound pretty terrifying, the odds of us somehow getting sucked up into one are pretty slim. But if you want to know what it would be like, well, you're in luck, because there's a simulator that just does that - and…

Home News Science & Astronomy Blackholes in the hearts of galaxies are usually shrouded in dust. (Image credit: Peter Z. Harrington) Black holes residing at the center of galaxies produce way more energy than scientists previously thought, a new study has revealed.  These so-called active galactic nuclei devour huge amounts…

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the moment an enormous black hole twisted a star into a doughnut shape as it was “violently swallowing it”. Located 300 million light-years away, the black hole is at the core of a galaxy called ESO 583-G004. Astronomers used Hubble’s powerful instruments to study…

Artist’s impression of a collection of black holes in the core of a star cluster. Credit: ESA/Hubble, N. Bartmann Since 2015, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration has detected about 85 pairs of black holes crashing into each other. We now know that Einstein was right: gravitational waves are generated by these systems…

Powered by supermassive black holes swallowing matter in the centers of galaxies, active galactic nuclei are the most powerful compact steady sources of energy in the universe. The brightest active galactic nuclei have long been known to far outshine the combined light of the billions of stars in their host…

A star is being consumed by a nearby supermassive black hole. Astronomers call this a tidal disruption event (TDE). What makes this TDE a very rare TDE is that as the black hole rips apart the star, two jets of material moving with almost the speed of light are launched…

Supermassive black holes are found deep within the enormous galaxies at the center of galaxy clusters. The atmospheres of galaxy clusters are packed with plasma and are extremely hot—about 50 million degrees Celsius—but these temperatures typically decrease over time, allowing for the formation of new stars. In a process known…