Black Holes Archives

August 13, 2024August 13, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Primordial Black Holes Could Kick Out Stars and Replace Them.

This artist's illustration shows what primordial black holes might look like. In reality, the black holes would struggle to form accretion disks, as shown. Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Primordial black holes formed during the earliest stages of the evolution of the universe. Their immense gravity may be playing havoc in stellar systems. They can transfer energy into wide binary systems disrupting their orbits. Like celestial bullies their disruption might lead to extreme outcomes though like the ejection of a star, only to be replaced by the black hole itself! A new paper studies the interactions of systems like these and looks at ways we might be able to detect them.

August 10, 2024August 10, 2024 by Matt Williams

Scientists Develop a Novel Method for Detecting Supermassive Black Holes: Use Smaller Black Holes!

A simulation of two merging black holes. Credit: Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) Project

In 1974, astronomers Bruce Balick and Robert L. Brown discovered a powerful radio source at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The source, Sagittarius A*, was subsequently revealed to be a supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass of over 4 million Suns. Since then, astronomers have determined that SMBHs reside at the center of all galaxies with highly active central regions known as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or “quasars.” Despite all we’ve learned, the origin of these massive black holes remains one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy.

The most popular theories are that they may have formed when the Universe was still very young or have grown over time by consuming the matter around them (accretion) and through mergers with other black holes. In recent years, research has shown that when mergers between such massive objects occur, Gravitational Waves (GWs) are released. In a recent study, an international team of astrophysicists proposed a novel method for detecting pairs of SMBHs: analyzing gravitational waves generated by binaries of nearby small stellar black holes.

August 9, 2024August 9, 2024 by Evan Gough

The JWST Reveals the Nature of Dust Around an Active Galactic Nuclei

The James Webb Space Telescope captured this three colour image of the galaxy ESO 428-G14. New research shows how the dust near the galaxy's supermassive black hole is heated up. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) are located in the centers of large galaxies like ours. When they’re actively feeding, they produce more light and are called active galactic nuclei (AGN). But their details are difficult to observe clearly because large clouds of gas block our view.

The JWST was built just for circumstances like these.

August 7, 2024August 7, 2024 by Mark Thompson

How a Black Hole Could Eat a Neutron Star from the Inside Out

Illustration of a neutron star. Credit: ESA

Primordial black holes are thought to have formed early in the evolution of the universe. None have been discovered yet but if they do exist and they may be plentiful, drifting almost invisibly through the cosmos, then they might account for dark matter. One possible way to search for them is to see the results of their meals and a bizarre new theory suggests low mass black holes could be captured by neutron stars and become trapped inside, devouring them from within. If these strange objects existed then it would make neutron stars less common in locations where black holes would proliferate as observed around Galactic centre.

July 30, 2024July 30, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Finally! Astronomers Find the Missing Link Between Stellar and Supermassive Black Holes

Image of a black hole candidate, and potential intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH), within the globular cluster known as Omega Centauri. (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle)

While black holes are known as the most destructive objects in the universe, their evolution is largely shrouded in mystery. This is because while astronomers are familiar with supermassive black holes that exist at the center of galaxies like our own and black holes whose masses are less than 100 times the size of our Sun, the notion of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) have largely eluded discovery. However, this might change with the recent discovery of a black hole candidate that could exist within the globular cluster, Omega Centauri, and holds the potential to be the “missing link” in scientists better understanding black hole evolution.

July 25, 2024July 25, 2024 by Evan Gough

A Solution to the “Final Parsec Problem?”

Simulation of merging supermassive black holes. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble — Simulation of merging supermassive black holes. New research shows how dark matter overcomes the Final Parsec Problem. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble

Supermassive Black Holes are Nature’s confounding behemoths. It’s difficult for Earth-bound minds to comprehend their magnitude and power. Astrophysicists have spent decades studying them, and they’ve made progress. But one problem still baffles even them: the Final Parsec Problem.

New research might have solved the problem, and dark matter plays a role in the solution.

July 23, 2024July 23, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope To Unlock Mysteries of Black Holes

Impact of scattering on the observed polarimetric spiral phase from one 345 GHz frame of the GRMHD simulation of Sgr A*

The prospect of actually resolving the event horizon of black holes feels like the stuff of science fiction yet it is a reality. Already the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has resolved the horizon of the black holes at the centre of the Milky Way and M87. A team of astronomers are now looking to the next generation of the EHT which will work at multiple frequencies with more telescopes than EHT. A new paper suggests it may even be possible to capture the ring where light goes into orbit around the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 by Evan Gough

Black Holes Dominate Large Regions of Space, But They’re Mysterious

This image is from a black hole simulator. It shows a supermassive black hole, or quasar, surrounded by a swirling disk of material called an accretion disk. There are many unanswered questions about black holes and how they grow to be so massive. Simulations is one way of finding answers. Image Credit: Caltech/Phil Hopkins group

In the beginning, the Universe was all primordial gas. Somehow, some of it was swept up into supermassive black holes (SMBHs), the gargantuan singularities that reside at the heart of galaxies. The details of how that happened and how SMBHs accumulate mass are some of astrophysics’ biggest questions.

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

What’s Next for the Event Horizon Telescope? Twelve Possible New Targets

Both the Milky Way and a galaxy known as M87 have supermassive black holes at their core. These are the two largest black holes we know about and the Event Horizon Telescope has just captured stunning images of their event horizons. A new paper looks at what we might expect from a next generation EHT and highlights twelve targets that should be top of the list.

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Galaxies Filled With Old Stars Seen Shortly After the Big Bang

Astronomers used JWST to investigate three mysterious objects in the very early Universe. These little red dots contain extremely ancient stars and supermassive black holes. Courtesy JWST/Penn State University.

How can young galaxies in the early Universe have ancient stars? That’s the question a team of astronomers set out to answer using JWST as a probe. They first spotted the massive objects in 2022 and are still working to explain what these things are.