SMBH
Hubble Gets its Best Look At the First Quasar
The term quasar comes from quasi-stellar objects, a name that reflected our uncertainty about their nature. The first quasars were…
Jets From Supermassive Black Holes Create New Stars Along Their Trajectory
Since the 1970s, astronomers have observed that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the centers of most massive galaxies. In…
Scientists Develop a Novel Method for Detecting Supermassive Black Holes: Use Smaller Black Holes!
In 1974, astronomers Bruce Balick and Robert L. Brown discovered a powerful radio source at the center of the Milky…
The JWST Reveals the Nature of Dust Around an Active Galactic Nuclei
Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) are located in the centers of large galaxies like ours. When they're actively feeding, they produce…
Little Red Dots in Webb Photos Turned Out to Be Quasars
In its first year of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) made some profound discoveries. These included providing the…
The Brightest Object Ever Seen in the Universe
It's an exciting time in astronomy today, where records are being broken and reset regularly. We are barely two months…
Astronomers are Getting Really Good at Weighing Baby Supermassive Black Holes
In the 1970s, astronomers deduced that the persistent radio source coming from the center of our galaxy was actually a…
Sometimes Compact Galaxies Hide Their Black Holes
Quasars, short for quasi-stellar objects, are one of the most powerful and luminous classes of objects in our Universe. A…
New Stars Forming Uncomfortably Close to the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
Astronomers examining a star cluster near Sgr A*, the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, found that the cluster has some…
A Black Hole Switched On in the Blink of an Eye
A new study describes how astronomers discovered a supermassive black hole that suddenly "switched on" and became