Black Holes
Supermassive Black Holes Grew by Consuming Gas and Entire Stars
Where do they come from, those beguiling singularities that flummox astrophysicists—and the rest of us. Sure, we understand the processes…
About 3.5 Million Years Ago, a Stream of Gas Outside the Milky Way Would Have Lit Up the Night Sky
It's a truism to point out that modern humans have only been around for the blink of an eye, relative…
New Simulations Show How Black Holes Grow, Through Mergers and Accretion
One of the most pressing questions in astronomy concerns black holes. We know that massive stars that explode as supernovae…
Black Hole Seen Blasting Out Jets at Close to the Speed of Light
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has spotted a distant black hole shooting out jets of material, at close to the speed…
Supermassive Black Hole Orbits an Even More Massive Black Hole, Crashing Through its Accretion Disk Every 12 Years
Recent observations by the now-retired Spitzer mission have led to accurate predictions OJ 287, a blazar that contains a supermassive…
A Star is Orbiting the Milky Way’s Black Hole and Moving Exactly How Einstein Predicted it Should
After almost 30 years of observing a star that orbits the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy,…
Light Behaves Really Strangely Around a Black Hole
A new study led by Caltech researchers show that light can be reflected off of a black hole's disk by…
How were Supermassive Black Holes Already Forming and Releasing Powerful Jets Shortly After the Big Bang?
A series of studies has shown that the seeds of supermassive black holes and relativistic jets existed much sooner than…
How Researchers Produce Sharp Images of a Black Hole
A new study by members of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has shown how new images of black…
Even Though it Was Observing an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx Accidentally Spotted a Black Hole
While the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting asteroid Bennu, one of the instruments on board happened to catch a glimpse of…