Tag Archive for 'Black hole'

This panorama shows the central region of the Milky Way Galaxy. It builds on previous surveys from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, and expands Chandra’s high-energy view farther above and below the plane of the Galaxy than previous imaging campaigns. X-rays from Chandra are orange, green, and purple, showing different X-ray energies, and the radio data from MeerKAT are gray. Image credit: NASA / CXC / UMass / Q.D. Wang / NRF / SARAO / MeerKAT.

Milky Way’s Central Black Hole is Surrounded by Metal-Rich Gas, Webb Reveals

Oct 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The enrichment in metals (any element heavier than hydrogen and helium, including carbon, oxygen, iron and gold) likely came from generations of exploding...

This composite image of the Treble Clef and its galaxy cluster contains X-rays from Chandra and eROSITA, radio data from LOFAR, and infrared data from UKIRT. Image credit: NASA / CXC / INAF-IRA / Botteon et al. / UKIDSS-GPS / ASTRON / LOFAR / SAO / N. Wolk.

‘Treble Clef’ Radio Glow Reveals Galaxy Cluster Hiding behind Milky Way

Oct 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

VLSS J0318.9+5755, a strange, musical-note-shaped radio source hiding behind the Milky Way’s dusty disk, has turned out to be the glowing remains of...

This composite image shows the locations of hypersoft X-ray sources in the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101. Image credit: NASA / CXC / Univ. of Alabama / Muhibullah et al. / ESA / STScI / SAO / N. Wolk.

Astronomers Discover New Class of X-Ray Objects

Sep 22, 2026 by News Staff

Named ‘hypersoft X-ray sources,’ these objects give off very low-energy X-rays that are difficult to detect. This composite image shows the locations...

Palomino Ylla et al. found a way to check for black hole hair using changes in ringdown waves. Image credit: Nagoya University.

Physicists Devise New Way to Listen for ‘Hairy’ Black Holes

Sep 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

When two black holes merge, the resulting object rings like a struck bell, radiating gravitational waves that fade in a distinctive pattern called ringdown....

Little red dots may reside in small galaxies with total masses equivalent to around one billion times that of the Sun. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-026-02945-z.

Mysterious ‘Little Red Dots’ Could Be Tiny Galaxies with Giant Black Holes at Their Hearts

Aug 25, 2026 by News Staff

The mysterious objects spotted in the early Universe may not be isolated points of light after all. A new analysis of images of 217 ‘little red dots’...

This sequence of images, taken with the GRAVITY instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, show several stars orbiting Sagittarius A*. One of these stars, known as S301, was recently found to pass much closer to the black hole than any other known star. Image credit: ESO / GRAVITY Collaboration.

Newly-Discovered Star Could Finally Reveal Spin of Our Galaxy’s Central Black Hole

Aug 19, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have spotted a faint, previously unknown star whipping around Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, on the tightest and...

Mid-infrared image of the IRS 3 environment, observed with VLT/NACO and Webb/MIRI/MRS. Image credit: Peißker et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202660243.

Water and Dust Found Surviving near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Aug 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers found that IRS 3 — a bloated giant star orbiting just 0.55 light-years to...

Mishra et al. suggest that AGN dust tori host the largest populations of planets in the Universe. Image credit: ESO.

Dusty Accretion Disks around Supermassive Black Holes May Be Secret Planet Factories

Aug 13, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers from New Mexico State University, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center and CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College propose that the...

This Webb image shows the MoM-BH*-1 object. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Naidu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10846-4.

Astronomers Find Black Hole Star in Early Universe

Aug 12, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Roughly 660 million years after the Big Bang, a strange bright red spot has been hiding in plain sight in one of the deepest fields ever imaged by the...

TDE 2025abcr. Image credit: Stein et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae77f3.

Astronomers Spot Wandering Supermassive Black Hole Far From Its Galaxy’s Heart

Jul 29, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a dormant supermassive black hole 30,000 light-years from the center of WISEA J014656.04-152214.7 — a massive galaxy...

Whitaker et al. found Omega Centauri’s first stellar-mass black hole, which has a visible star companion that is shown in greater detail. Image credit: ESA / NASA / Maximilian Häberle, MPIA / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Astronomers Find Omega Centauri’s First Stellar-Mass Black Hole

Jul 20, 2026 by News Staff

After decades of searching, astronomers have pinpointed the first of an estimated 10,000 stellar-mass black holes thought to lurk in Omega Centauri, the...

This Hubble image shows the elliptical galaxy NGC 4696. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Fabian.

Webb Catches Supermassive Black Hole Feeding from Cosmic Gas Streams

Jul 14, 2026 by News Staff

New images of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal gas filaments funneling material into a spinning...

This collage shows 15 of the 31 newly discovered quasars by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3 are visible on the first row, the first and second from the left, respectively. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / Euclid Science Ground Segment / Antoine Basset, CNES.

Euclid Discovers Earliest Quasars Ever Seen

Jul 8, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s Euclid space telescope have discovered 31 ancient quasars from a time when the Universe was just 670 to 800 million years old....

This Webb image shows the little red dot GLIMPSE-17775, which is located behind the galaxy cluster Abell S1063. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Vasily Kokorev, UT Austin / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Webb Delivers Strongest-Ever Case for ‘Black Hole Stars’ Lurking in Early Universe

Jun 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For several years, astronomers have been puzzling over a peculiar population of objects discovered by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope —...

This image shows the evidence for the wind blowing away from Sagittarius A*: the white dot in the center of the image shows the supermassive black hole; in orange is data from ALMA, mapping the location of cold gas composed of carbon monoxide in the image; in blue is X-ray data from Chandra; a large cone-shaped cavity, visible as an absence of cold gas in the ALMA data, is filled by hot X-ray-emitting gas in the Chandra data. Image credit: NASA / CXC / UMass / Wang et al. / ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Longmore et al. / Minniti et al.

Astronomers Finally Find Milky Way’s Missing Black Hole Wind

Jun 8, 2026 by News Staff

After a 50-year search, astronomers have uncovered evidence that Sagittarius A* — the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole that resides at the center...

This Webb image shows the highly distorted red galaxy MRG-M0138 seen through a foreground cluster of galaxies (white sources). Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb.

Webb Weighs Most Distant Inactive Black Hole Ever Found

Jun 5, 2026 by News Staff

A supermassive black hole 6 billion times the mass of the Sun lurks in MRG-M0138, a gravitationally lensed quiescent galaxy seen when the Universe was...

This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the spiral galaxy Messier 88. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker / MAUVE-HST Team.

Hubble Captures Active Spiral Galaxy: Messier 88

Jun 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly-released Hubble image shows Messier 88, a black hole-powered spiral galaxy that is gradually plunging toward the crowded heart of the Virgo Cluster. This...

This Webb/NIRCam image shows the little red dot Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Lukas Furtak, Ben-Gurion University / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Webb Spots Supermassive Black Hole Older Than Its Home Galaxy

May 28, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found an enormous black hole in the early Universe that appears to predate its own host...

$Gravitational waves observed by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) twin detectors were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. Image credit: T. Pyle / LIGO.$

Gravitational Waves Could Become New Tool in Hunt for Dark Matter

May 13, 2026 by News Staff

Researchers have developed a new method to identify whether black hole mergers occurred inside dense clouds of dark matter, potentially opening a fresh...

Aggarwal et al. show that the energy released from dark matter decay could alter the chemistry of early galaxies enough to cause some of them to directly collapse into black holes rather than forming stars. Image credit: Aggarwal et al., doi: 10.1088/1475-7516/2026/04/034.

Dark Matter May Have Jump-Started Universe’s First Giant Black Holes

Apr 29, 2026 by News Staff

New research by astronomers from the University of California, Riverside, Sam Houston State University and the University of Oklahoma suggests decaying...

‹12 3 ›»