The Biggest Black Holes May Start From The Tiniest Seeds
The existence of gigantic black holes in the very early universe challenges our assumptions of how black holes form and grow. New research suggests that these monsters may have found their origins in the earliest epochs of the Big Bang. For years astronomers have been troubled by observations of fully grown supermassive black holes before…
Two Supermassive Black Holes on the Verge of a Merger
In March 2021, astronomers observed a high-energy burst of light from a distant galaxy. Assigned the name AT 2021hdr, it was thought to be a supernova. However, there were enough interesting features that flagged as potentially interesting by the Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE). In 2022, another outburst was observed, and…
Astronomers Map the Shape of a Black Hole’s Corona for the...
If you were lucky enough to observe a total eclipse, you are certain to remember the halo of brilliant light around the Moon during totality. It’s known as the corona, and it is the diffuse outer atmosphere of the Sun. Although it is so thin we’d consider it a vacuum on Earth, it has a…
Early Black Holes Fed 40x Faster than Should Be Possible
The theory goes that black holes accrete material, often from nearby stars. However the theory also suggests there is a limit to how big a black hole can grow due to accretion and certainly shouldn’t be as large as they are seen to be in the early Universe. Black holes it seems, are fighting back…
Extremely rare ‘failed supernova’ may have erased a star from the...
Astronomers have watched a massive star vanish in the night sky, only to be replaced by a black hole.The supergiant star M31-2014-DS1, which has a mass 20 times greater than the sun and is located 2.5 million light-years away in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, brightened in 2014 before dimming from 2016 until 2023, when it…
‘Webb has shown us they are clearly wrong’: How astrophysicist Sophie...
A supermassive mystery lurks at the center of the Milky Way. Supermassive black holes are gigantic ruptures in space-time that sit in the middle of many galaxies, periodically sucking in matter before spitting it out at near light speeds to shape how galaxies evolve.Yet how they came to be so enormous is a prevailing mystery…
How Did Supermassive Black Holes Get So Big, So Early? They...
Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) can have billions of solar masses, and observational evidence suggests that all large galaxies have one at their centres. However, the JWST has revealed a foundational cosmic mystery. The powerful space telescope, with its ability to observe ancient galaxies in the first billion years after the Big Bang, has shown us…
‘Webb has shown us they are clearly wrong’: How astrophysicist Sophie...
A supermassive mystery lurks at the center of the Milky Way. Supermassive black holes are gigantic ruptures in space-time that sit in the middle of many galaxies, periodically sucking in matter before spitting it out at near light speeds to shape how galaxies evolve.Yet how they came to be so enormous is a prevailing mystery…
NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope sees ‘knots’ blasting from nearby black hole...
Astronomers have scoured decades-old data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, finding bright, lumpy features dotting a jet of energy spit out by a nearby black hole. Puzzlingly, the "knots" clock a faster speed when seen in X-rays than they do in radio wavelengths. scientists said."The X-ray data traces a unique picture that you can't see…
Using Light Echoes to Find Black Holes
The most amazing thing about light is that it takes time to travel through space. Because of that one simple fact, when we look up at the Universe we see not a snapshot but a history. The photons we capture with our telescopes tell us about their journey. This is particularly true when gravity comes…
