Tag Archive for 'Supermassive black hole'

GS-10578 represents a unique opportunity to study how the most massive galaxies in the Universe became -- and stayed -- quiescent. Image credit: Francesco D’Eugenio.

Supermassive Black Holes Can Starve Their Host Galaxies of Star-Forming Gas, Research Confirms

Sep 17, 2024 by News Staff

Astrononomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected that GS-10578, a massive, quiescent galaxy at redshift of 3.064 (look-back...

An artist’s impression of HSC J121503.42-014858.7 and HSC J121503.55-014859.3 quasars. Image credit: Izumi et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad57c6.

Astronomers Discover Spectacular Galactic Merger in Early Universe

Sep 2, 2024 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Subaru Telescope, astronomers have discovered a pair of merging gas-rich galaxies...

This artist’s impression shows the locations of multiple radio observatories across the planet, which participated in a pilot experiment conducted by the EHT Collaboration that obtained the highest-resolution observations from the ground. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

EHT Makes Highest-Resolution Black Hole Detections Yet from Earth

Aug 27, 2024 by News Staff

Astrophysicists with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration have conducted test observations achieving the highest resolution ever obtained from...

This artist’s conception shows the galaxy merger and its two central black holes. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / M. Weiss, NRAO, AUI & NSF.

Astrophysicists May Have Solved ‘Final Parsec Problem’ of Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

Jul 23, 2024 by News Staff

New calculations reveal that pairs of supermassive black holes can merge into a larger black hole because of previously overlooked behavior of dark matter...

$This Webb image shows the RX J1131-1231 galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing into a dim ring; at the top of the ring are three very bright spots with diffraction spikes coming off them, right next to each other; these are copies of a single quasar in the lensed galaxy, duplicated by the gravitational lens; in the center of the ring, the elliptical galaxy doing the lensing appears as a small blue dot. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / A. Nierenberg.$

Webb Sees Four Images of Same Gravitationally Lensed Quasar

Jul 8, 2024 by News Staff

A quasar called RX J1131-1231 resides approximately 6 billion light-years away in the constellation of Crater. This Webb image shows the RX J1131-1231...

This artist’s impression shows the growing disk of material being pulled in by the black hole as it feeds on the gas available in its surroundings, making the galaxy light up. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Witness Awakening of Supermassive Black Hole

Jun 18, 2024 by News Staff

In December 2019, SDSS 1335+0728 — a little-known galaxy located 300 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo — suddenly started...

This image shows a region near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy in X-ray and radio light. At the bottom of the image, near the center, is a brilliant, tangled knot of material that resembles a paint splatter. This is the brightest region in the image, and it contains the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*. The lower third of the image resembles an angry firestorm. Streaks of red and orange are scattered in every direction, as if a legion of embers from a fire crackled and popped into the air all at once. Flame-like structures lick toward the center from our right. Much of the image is infused with wispy blue clouds showing X-rays detected by Chandra. At a few points, the wispy blue clouds seem to form into balls of teal colored light and are known as dust halos. They are caused by X-rays from bright X-ray sources reflecting off dust surrounding the sources. These dust halos resemble underwater lights glowing in a cloudy swimming pool at night. Rising up from Sagittarius A* in the center of the image is a pillar of blue light referred to as a chimney. This chimney of hot gas is surrounded by red clouds that are filled with stars, presenting themselves as tiny red flecks. Near the top of the blue pillar is a streak of light blue, outlined by an illustrated, gray box. This streak is referred to as the chimney exhaust vent. Just to our left is another illustrated box that shows the close-up image of the chimney vent as observed by Chandra. Image credit: NASA / CXC / Universe of Chicago / Mackey et al. / NRF / SARAO / MeerKAT / SAO / N. Wolk.

Milky Way’s Center is Venting, Astronomers Say

May 17, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered an ‘exhaust vent’ funneling hot gas away from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive...

The galaxy system ZS7. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / J. Dunlop / D. Magee / P. G. Pérez-González / H. Übler / R. Maiolino.

Webb Detects Ongoing Merger of Two Supermassive Black Holes in Early Universe

May 16, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their central black holes —...

This Hubble image shows part of NGC 4753, a lenticular galaxy some 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Kelsey.

Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on Center of NGC 4753

May 13, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

NGC 4753 is featured with a bright white core and surrounding defined dust lanes around its nucleus. This Hubble image shows part of NGC 4753, a lenticular...

The NASA visualization tracks a camera as it approaches, briefly orbits, and then crosses the event horizon -- the point of no return -- of a supersized black hole similar in mass to the one at the center of our Galaxy. Image credit: J. Schnittman & B. Powell, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

New NASA Visualization Shows Supermassive Black Hole’s Event Horizon

May 9, 2024 by News Staff

Thanks to a new visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, you can plunge into the event horizon, a black hole’s point of no return. “People...

This artist’s concept shows the possible locations of iron revealed in XRISM’s X-ray spectrum of NGC 4151. Image credit: Conceptual Image Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

XRISM Detects Iron in Accretion Disk around NGC 4151’s Supermassive Black Hole

May 8, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

NGC 4151 is a spiral galaxy located some 62 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. This artist’s concept shows the...

This Hubble image shows NGC 4951, a spiral galaxy some 49 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Thilker, Johns Hopkins University / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

NGC 4951: Hubble Space Telescope Captures Active Seyfert Galaxy

May 7, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a spectacular image of NGC 4951, a spiral galaxy with an active galactic center in...

This Hubble image shows NGC 3783, a barred spiral galaxy some 135 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus. The color image is composed of infrared and optical observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is based on data obtained through five filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M.C. Bentz / D.J.V. Rosario.

Hubble Sees Beautiful Barred Spiral Galaxy: NGC 3783

Apr 15, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have taken a picture of the bright barred spiral galaxy NGC 3783, which is found in the constellation...

This image from the Event Horizon Telescope shows the polarized view of Sagittarius A*; the lines overlaid on this image mark the orientation of polarization, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole. Image credit: EHT Collaboration.

Event Horizon Telescope Observes Twisted Magnetic Field around Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Mar 27, 2024 by News Staff

According to astronomers’ best models of black hole evolution, the magnetic fields in the accretion disk need to be strong enough to push the accreting...

This composite image shows the quasar H1821+643. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Nottingham / Russell et al. / NSF / NRAO / VLA / SAO / N. Wolk.

Astronomers Find Underachieving Quasar in Distant Galaxy Cluster

Mar 22, 2024 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have found that H1821+643 — the nearest quasar...

Storey-Fisher et al. present the all-sky quasar catalog Quaia, that samples the largest comoving volume of any existing spectroscopic quasar sample. Image credit: Storey-Fisher et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad1328.

Astronomers Create Largest-Ever Map of Universe’s Quasars

Mar 19, 2024 by News Staff

The new map, dubbed Quaia, includes around 1,295,502 quasars from across the visible Universe and could help astronomers better understand the properties...

This two-part graphic shows evidence of a gaseous clump of helium in the halo surrounding galaxy GN-z11. In the top portion, at the far right, a small box identifies GN-z11 in a field of galaxies. The middle box shows a zoomed-in image of the galaxy. The box at the far left displays a map of the helium gas in the halo of GN-z11, including a clump that does not appear in the infrared colors shown in the middle panel. In the lower half of the graphic, a spectrum shows the distinct ‘fingerprint’ of helium in the halo. The full spectrum shows no evidence of other elements and so suggests that the helium clump must be fairly pristine, made of hydrogen and helium gas left over from the big bang, without much contamination from heavier elements produced by stars. Theory and simulations in the vicinity of particularly massive galaxies from these epochs predict that there should be pockets of pristine gas surviving in the halo, and these may collapse and form Population III star clusters. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Webb Detects Pristine Helium Clump in GN-z11’s Halo

Mar 5, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

GN-z11 is an exceptionally luminous galaxy that existed when our Universe was only 420 million years old, making it one of the earliest and most distant...

An artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole binary in the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. daSilva / M. Zamani.

Astronomers Measure Heaviest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Ever Found

Mar 1, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using archival data from the Gemini North telescope have measured a binary supermassive black hole located within the elliptical galaxy B2...

Composite-color image of A2744-QSO1. Image credit: Furtak et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07184-8.

Webb Finds Surprisingly Massive Black Hole in Early Universe

Feb 27, 2024 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have observed an extremely red, quasar-like object — named A2744-QSO1 — behind...

Multiwavelength image of the massive galaxy cluster SDSS J1531+3414. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / Omoruyi et al. / STScI / Tremblay et al. / ASTRON / LOFAR / NASA / CXC / SAO / N. Wolk.

Astronomers Detect Mega-Eruption from Supermassive Black Hole in Distant Galaxy Cluster

Feb 22, 2024 by News Staff

Some of the gas sent gas away from the supermassive black hole — which is located in the center of the galaxy cluster SDSS J1531+3414 (SDSS J1531...

‹1 234 5 ›»