Black Hole

Artist’s rendition of an Active Galactic Nucleus with the accretion disk highlighted. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Conceptual Image Lab Dust patterns around quasars may help reveal supermassive black holes kicked from galactic centers. When galaxies collide, the chaos does not stop with stars and gas. At the center…

The 'youth-obsessed' BBC is set to axe its arts and culture channel BBC4 and invest in YouTube and TikTok – a move described by furious insiders as a betrayal of the traditional viewers who still pay the licence fee. The BBC is scrambling to make savings after discovering a £500million…

JWST's view of the dusty structures and hidden activity inside the Centaurus A galaxy. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI), J. Depasquale (STScI), M. Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI))) Quick facts What it is: Centaurus A galaxy (NGC 5128) Where it is: 11 million…

A quasar emits exceptional amounts of energy generated by matter falling into a supermassive black hole. Credit: NASA ESA and J. Olmsted (STScI) Thirty-one newly discovered ancient quasars are giving scientists their clearest view yet of the universe’s earliest giant black holes. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the…

Illustration of the black hole at the center of the galaxy SDSS J110546.07+145202.4. (Image credit: Max Planck Institute/Dream Lab) A supermassive black hole at the heart of a nearby galaxy is behaving similarly to black holes that existed just after the Big Bang, voraciously feeding on copious amounts of matter.…

An illustration of an ancient quasar. (Image credit: ESA) Using the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, astronomers have discovered a treasure trove of 31 black-hole-powered quasars in the early universe. The most impressive of these new discoveries is the most ancient and distant quasar ever seen, shining with the…

Journalist Katie Couric recently shared her experience of sudden memory loss that persisted for several hours during a recent trip to Colorado. Doctors diagnosed the episode as transient global amnesia, a temporary condition that stops new memories from forming for a short period of time. "It was Saturday, June 27,…

Quasars rank among the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe. They are fueled by supermassive black holes that consume surrounding material at the centers of galaxies, producing so much energy that they can be seen across billions of light years. Now, an international team of researchers has identified…

The accretion disk of NGC 4151 is shown blue, immediately surrounding the galaxy’s central black hole. Scientists, including University of Michigan astronomers, are showing how winds or outflows from the accretion disk reshape its host galaxy. The winds are shown as wispy light blue lines blowing across the more orange…

A quasar emits exceptional amounts of energy generated by matter falling into a supermassive black hole, as seen in this illustration released on July 6, 2026. | Photo Credit: NASA A quasar — among the universe's most luminous and energetic objects — is a supermassive black hole caught in the…