Black Hole

A team of researchers from Purdue University and other institutions have discovered a supermassive black hole binary system, one of only two known such systems. The two black holes, which orbit each other, likely weigh 100 million suns each. One of the black holes powers a massive jet that moves…

An international team of physicists from RIKEN, Cornell University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, has used a new spacetime geometry with a wormhole-like structure to show that information is not necessarily irretrievably lost from evaporating black holes. A traversable wormhole in four space-time dimensions. Image credit: NASA /…

In 2020, the X-ray satellite eROSITA revealed two gigantic bubbles extending to 80° above and below the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The morphology of these ‘eROSITA bubbles’ bears a remarkable resemblance to the Fermi bubbles previously discovered by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and its counterpart — the…

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, anything that falls into the black hole can not escape its clutches. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking found that an isolated black hole would emit radiation but only when considered quantum mechanics. This is known as black hole evaporation because the black hole…

The Earth’s closest black hole isn’t a black hole at all. Instead, astronomers say it’s just a two-star system where one star is sucking the life out of the other. Earth’s closest black hole isn’t a black hole after all Back in 2020, a mission led by the European Southern…

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees discusses the most extraordinary aspects of his distinguished career, from black holes to billionaires in space and the prospects of life beyond Earth Physics 9 March 2022 By Richard Webb David Stock AS ASTRONOMER Royal, you have to assume Martin Rees isn’t in it for the…

There are two enormous bubbles of scorching gas expanding from the core of the Milky Way has into near-galactic space. First seen in 2020 by the X-ray telescope eRosita, the bubbles extend far above and below the center of our galaxy. These bubbles resemble the Fermi bubbles and microwave haze—a…

Physicists may have discovered what happens to matter that is swallowed by black holes by considering wormholes, theoretical bridges that connect distant points in the Universe. The team from Japan's RIKEN research institute, including RIKEN Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences researcher Kanato Goto, show that black holes mimic wormholes—a concept…

Another source of radiation near a black hole is the corona. They are made of highly energetic particles that generate X-ray light. For twenty years, there has been a debate about whether the corona and the jet of the black hole were simply the same things. In 2015, observations from…

KDdesignphoto/Shutterstock Once every 100,000 years or so, an event will occur in a galaxy that results in a star being instantly destroyed by one of the universe's most powerful forces. What natural phenomena could exist in the heavens around us that would threaten something as massive as a star? Simple…