Black Hole

At the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole. This black hole, dubbed Sagittarius A*, is 4.3 million times bigger than the sun. A recent composite image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope suggests that this Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole has been leaking gas or emitting…

Four distant stars orbit a black hole 4.3 million times bigger than the sun. Credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva /( Spaceengine); M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab) At the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole, 4.3 million times bigger…

Sagittarius A*, the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, is a strong source of radio, X-rays and gamma rays. It also displays flaring emission in the X-ray band atop a steady, quiescent level, as well as in other wavebands, most prominently in the near-infrared. The…

One of the great mysteries in astronomy is how galaxies form. At issue is why stars gather into “island universes” rather than spreading out evenly through the universe. One clue comes from the observation that most galaxies contain massive black holes at their centers. That has led to the proposal…

Home News Science & Astronomy The dwarf galaxy Mrk 462. (Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Dartmouth Coll./J. Parker & R. Hickox; Optical/IR: Pan-STARRS)A newly discovered "mini" supermassive black hole could help reveal some of the secrets behind the biggest black holes in the cosmos. Researchers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory recently discovered…

When you snack upon a star — It's the second such event discovered in radio regime; the first was discovered in 2020. Jennifer Ouellette - Jan 11, 2022 11:03 pm UTC Enlarge / Artist's conception of a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE)—a star being shredded by the powerful gravity of a…

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A supermassive black hole with 200,000 solar masses is located in the middle of the dwarf galaxy Markarian 462 (Mrk 462), according to new research led by Dartmouth College astrophysicists. This graphic shows X-rays that NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected from the dwarf galaxy Mrk 462. This X-ray emission (inset)…

Home News Science & Astronomy An artist's depiction of the IXPE observatory in space. (Image credit: NASA) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's newest space observatory, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), is set to begin spying on some of the universe's most dramatic objects — black holes and neutron stars…

Home News Science & Astronomy An artist's depiction of a black hole eating a star, also known as a tidal disruption event, and producing a superfast jet. (Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF/NASA) Astronomers have found evidence of a black hole snacking on a star in data gathered back in the 1980s, according…