black hole
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Scientists extract the sharpest image of a black hole yet
The EHT Collaboration has released the most detailed image yet of the M87 black hole, created with the aid of an additional telescope.
Steve Dent01.18.2024
James Webb telescope captures the most distant active supermassive black hole yet
As part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole we've seen to date.
Mariella Moon07.08.2023
Researchers used machine learning to improve the first photo of a black hole
Researchers have used machine learning to tighten up a previously released image of a black hole. As a result, the portrait of the black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, over 53 million light years away from Earth, shows a thinner ring of matter surrounding its center.
Will Shanklin04.13.2023
Scientists reveal first image of the black hole in the center of our galaxy
Scientists have captured the first image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Jon Fingas05.12.2022
Listen to the sound of a black hole feeding on stellar material
The MIT study could shed light on how supermassive black holes help shape their galaxies.
Mariella Moon05.03.2022
Black hole 'quantum hair' might solve a decades-old scientific paradox
Scientists claim to have solved a scientific paradox by determining that black holes have 'quantum hair.'
Jon Fingas03.17.2022
Scientists spot light behind a black hole for the first time
Scientists have witnessed the light from behind a black hole for the first time using NASA and ESA telescopes.
Saqib Shah08.02.2021
This is the most detailed picture of a black hole to date
Scientists have captured an image of the M87 galaxy's black hole showing how it looks in polarized light, revealing the shape of key magnetic fields.
Jon Fingas03.27.2021
One of the first known black holes is more massive than once thought
Astronomers have determined that one of the first known black holes, Cygnus X-1, is more massive than once thought — and that could force a rethink of scientific models.
Jon Fingas02.20.2021
Hubble researchers find a gaggle of small black holes
Hubble telescope researchers have found a concentration of small black holes — the first studied in significant detail.
Jon Fingas02.13.2021
Astronomers spot a super-rare class of black hole for the first time
“We were able to confirm that this came from a collision of two black holes,” Jani said. The individual black holes weighed roughly 85 and 65 times the mass of the sun, respectively.
Andrew Tarantola09.02.2020
Astronomers may have spotted light from colliding black holes
Astronomers believe they've seen the first known light resulting from colliding black holes.
Jon Fingas06.28.2020
Astronomers are puzzled by a mysterious dead star
Physicists aren't sure if they've found the heaviest neutron star or the lightest black hole.
Marc DeAngelis06.24.2020
Scientists find the closest known black hole to date
Astronomers have found the closest black hole known so far -- just 1,000 light-years away.
Jon Fingas05.06.2020
Scientists visualize a black hole plasma jet in unprecedented detail
Scientists visualize a black hole plasma jet in unprecedented detail
Marc DeAngelis04.07.2020
Hubble captures the immense 'tsunami' power of quasars
Powered by supermassive black holes that consume huge amounts of galactic material, quasars are some of the most energetic objects in the universe. How energetic? Some of them shine up to 1,000 times brighter than the galaxies that house them. Now, a team of astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope to examine several large quasars, and what they found was mind-boggling. Some quasars act like tsunamis, pushing 46-million-MPH winds that blast out hundreds of times the Sun's weight of material per year while creating ripples across entire galaxies.
Steve Dent03.25.2020
Astronomers find stellar black hole so large it shouldn't exist
Just because there's a picture of a black hole doesn't mean astronomers have figured out how they work. Chinese-led researchers have detected a stellar black hole in the Milky Way with a mass so large that it breaks current stellar evolution models. LB-1, a black hole 15,000 light-years away, has a mass 70 times greater than that of the Sun -- previous estimates suggested that no stellar black hole would have more than 20 times the Sun's mass. Scientists expected many dying stars to shed most of their gas, making something this large impossible without readjusting theories.
Jon Fingas12.01.2019
Scientists find a hidden black hole using new detection method
How do you see something that's invisible? As reported by Space.com, a team of scientists has come up with a new way to spot dim black holes by looking at how they influence light given off by stars around them.
Georgina Torbet11.01.2019
The first ever black hole image lands scientists $3 million prize
The scientists that captured the first image of a black hole are being rewarded with a $3 million prize. The Breakthrough prize, known as the "Oscars of Science," is sponsored by Silicon Valley execs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin, and recognizes top scientists in fields including life sciences, physics and math.
Rachel England09.06.2019
Scientists find the largest observed black hole to date
Astronomers aren't done with major black hole discoveries this year. The Max Planck Institute's Kianusch Mehrgan and colleagues have found the largest black hole ever observed at the center of Holm 15A, a galaxy about 700 million light-years away. It's more than twice as large as the previous observed record-setter at 40 billion times the mass of the Sun, and 10,000 times the mass of the black hole at the core of the Milky Way.
Jon Fingas08.11.2019