Black Holes Archives

September 9, 2020September 10, 2020 by Matt Williams

Behold! The Black Hole Collision Calculator!

This image shows two massive black holes in the OJ 287 galaxy. The smaller black hole orbits the larger one, which is also surrounded by a disk of gas. When the smaller black hole crashes through the disk, it produces a flare brighter than 1 trillion stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Black holes have been the subject of intense interest ever since scientists began speculating about their existence. Originally proposed in the early 20th century as a consequence of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, black holes became a mainstream subject a few decades later. By 1971, the first physical evidence of black holes was found and by 2016, the existence of gravitational waves was confirmed for the first time.

This discovery touched off a new era in astrophysics, letting people know collision between massive objects (black holes and/or neutron stars) creates ripples in spacetime that can be detected light-years away. To give people a sense of how profound these events are, Álvaro Díez created the Black Hole Collision Calculator (BHCC) – a tool that lets you see what the outcome of a collision between a black hole and any astronomical object would be!

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

Why Can Black Hole Binaries Have Dramatically Different Masses? Multiple Generations of Mergers

Simulated merger of two black holes. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

On the 12th of April, 2019, the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories detected the merger of two black holes. Named GW190412, one of the black holes was eight solar masses, while the other was 30 solar masses. On the 14th of August that year, an even more extreme merger was observed, when a 2.5 solar mass object merged with a black hole nearly ten times more massive. These mergers raise fundamental questions about the way black hole mergers happen.

July 31, 2020July 30, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Supermassive black holes can cloak themselves in a cocoon of dust, making them invisible even when they should be bright quasars

Artist's impression of a shroud of dust cloaking a supermassive black hole, alongside the X-ray view of where black holes should be. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/B.Luo et al; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

Quasars are the most powerful sources of light in the universe, but sometimes they’re hard to find. A team of astronomers used the Chandra X-ray Space Telescope to find some diamonds in the rough.

July 22, 2020July 21, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

A ring of high-energy particles surrounding a black hole suddenly disappeared

If we could see the blazar 3C 354.3 up close it would look something like this. A bright accretion disk surrounds a black hole. Twin jets of radiation beam from the center. Credit: Cosmovision

In March 2018 astronomers watched a massive black hole surge in brightness. Then over the following year, its ring of light dimmed to near-invisibility before regaining its former strength. The potential culprit? The black hole swallowing an entire star.

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

A Black Hole Popping Out of a Traversable Wormhole Should Give Off a Very Specific Signal in Gravitational Waves

Artist view of colliding neutron stars. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser

Gravitational wave astronomy has changed the way we view the cosmos. In only a few years we have observed the collisions of black holes and neutron stars, confirming our theoretical understanding of these strange objects. But as gravitational wave astronomy matures, it will allow us to probe the very nature of space and time itself. While that day is a long way off, it hasn’t stopped the theory folks from dreaming up new discoveries. For example, how it might look if a black hole and a wormhole interact.

July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 by Evan Gough

If Planet 9 is a Primordial Black Hole, We Might Be Able to See Flares When it Consumes Comets

Artist's conception of accretion flares resulting from the encounter of an Oort-cloud comet and a hypothesized black hole in the outer solar system. Credit: M. Weiss

A comet-eating black hole the size of a planet? It’s possible. And if there’s one out there in the distant Solar System, a pair of researchers think they know how to find it.

If they do, we might finally put the Planet 9 issue to rest.

July 6, 2020February 17, 2023 by Matt Williams

There’s a Black Hole With 34 Billion Times the Mass of the Sun, Eating Roughly a Star Every Day

Close-up of star near a supermassive black hole (artist’s impression). Credit: ESA/Hubble, ESO, M. Kornmesser

In the 1960s, astronomers began theorizing that there might be black holes in the Universe that are so massive – supermassive black holes (SMBHs) – they could power the nuclei of active galaxies (aka. quasars). A decade later, astronomers discovered that an SMBH existed at the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A*); and by the 1990s, it became clear that most large galaxies in the Universe are likely to have one.

Since that time, astronomers have been hunting for the largest SMBH they can find in the hopes that they can see just how massive these things can get! And thanks to new research led by astronomers from the Australian National University, the latest undisputed heavy-weight contender has been found! With roughly 34 billion times the mass of our Sun, this SMBH (J2157) is the fastest-growing black hole and largest quasar observed to date.

June 30, 2020June 29, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

It might just be possible to see a light flash too when black holes merge

Artist's concept of a supermassive black hole and its surrounding disk of gas. Embedded within this disk are two smaller black holes orbiting one another. Image credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

Black hole merger events are some of the most energetic, fearsomely energetic events in all the cosmos. When black holes merge, they’re entirely invisible, the only evidence of the cataclysm some faint whisper of gravitational waves. Until now.

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 by Evan Gough

How an Advanced Civilization Could Exploit a Black Hole for Nearly Limitless Energy

This artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole and accretion disk, along with a relativistic jet emanating from its poles. Credit & ©: ESO/L. Calçada

A black hole as a source of energy?

We know black holes as powerful singularities, regions in space time where gravity is so overwhelming that nothing—not even light itself—can escape.

About 50 years ago, British physicist Roger Penrose proposed that black holes could be a source of energy. Now, researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have demonstrated that it may be possible.

June 24, 2020June 24, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

Astronomers Just Detected Either the Least Massive Black Hole, or a Strange and Massive Neutron Star

This graphic shows the latest merger compared to known black holes and neutron stars. Credit: LIGO-Virgo/ Frank Elavsky & Aaron Geller (Northwestern)

Black holes are the ultimate limit of gravitational collapse. Bring enough mass into a small enough volume, and its own weight will squeeze the mass into oblivion. All that remains is a warped pocket of space that it can trap anything that strays too close, even light.