Tag Archive for 'Supermassive black hole'

This image from the Gemini South telescope shows NGC 7727, a spiral galaxy located approximately 69 million light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / J. Miller, International Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Rodriguez, International Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Gemini South Telescope Captures Tangled Spiral Arms of NGC 7727

Oct 26, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A stunning new image from the Gemini South telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, shows NGC 7727 —...

Schematic representation of the tilted accretion disk model. The black hole spin axis is assumed to be straight up and down in this illustration. The jet direction points almost perpendicular to the disk plane. The misalignment between the black hole spin axis and disk rotation axis triggers the precession of the disk and jet. Image credit: Cui et al. / Intouchable Lab@Openverse / Zhejiang Lab.

Messier 87’s Supermassive Black Hole is Indeed Spinning, Astronomers Say

Sep 27, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Messier 87 is a giant elliptical galaxy located some 53 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. In April 2019, astronomers from the Event...

XRISM lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 07:42 p.m. EDT on September 6, 2023. Image credit: JAXA.

XRISM Mission Launches to Study Universe’s Most Energetic Objects and Events

Sep 8, 2023 by News Staff

The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) — a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with significant...

Astronomers Detect Emission from Outskirts of Supermassive Black Hole’s Accretion Disk

Aug 28, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Active galactic nuclei are primarily powered by a supermassive black hole lying at the center of a host galaxy that is accreting matter from its vicinity....

A giant black hole in PGC 43234 destroyed a large star and threw its pieces into space; the X-ray data reveal the relative amount of nitrogen compared to carbon in this stellar debris field. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Michigan / Miller et al. / M. Weiss.

ASASSN-14li: Supermassive Black Hole Destroys Massive Star, Throws Its Pieces into Space

Aug 22, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton and other telescopes have found evidence for a massive stellar disruption (over...

SPT-CL J2215-3537 resembles a blue cloud with a hazy golden light at its core. The cluster is set against the blackness of space, which is dotted with white, orange and blue specks of light. A combination of X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light, was used to create the image. The blue cloud represents X-ray gas observed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The cloud is soft, and uniform in texture. Over time, galaxy clusters often merge or collide. These collisions cause disturbances and sharp features in a cluster’s gas. When a cluster takes on a smooth, calm appearance, as found here in SPT-CL J2215-3537, it indicates that no such collisions have occurred for a very long time. Astronomers call these galaxy clusters ‘relaxed.’ The hazy golden light at the heart of the cloud represents a massive central galaxy with a large amount of star formation. This central galaxy is quite isolated within the blue gas cloud. There are relatively few nearby specks of light near the central galaxy, and none are as bright or as large. No other large galaxies have been found within 600,000 light-years of the central galaxy. This implies that SPT-CL J2215-3537 has not experienced a galaxy merger in the last billion years. Image credit: NASA / CXC / MIT / M. Calzadilla / STScI / HST / N. Wolk.

Chandra Spots ‘Relaxed’ Galaxy Cluster in Distant Universe

Jul 21, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The dynamically relaxed galaxy cluster SPT-CL J2215-3537 is about 8.4 billion light-years from Earth, making it the farthest galaxy cluster ever spotted...

CEERS 1019’s black hole existed just over 570 million years after the Big Bang and weighs only 9 million solar masses. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Astronomers Detect Farthest Active Supermassive Black Hole Yet

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA / CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered an active supermassive black hole in CEERS 1019, a galaxy that existed...

This deep galaxy field from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) shows an arrangement of 10 distant galaxies marked by eight white circles in a diagonal, thread-like line. Two of the circles contain more than one galaxy. This 3 million light-year-long filament is anchored by a very distant and luminous quasar. Ccalled J0305-3150, this quasar appears in the middle of the cluster of three circles on the right side of the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Feige Wang, University of Arizona.

Webb Detects 3-Million-Light-Year-Long Filament of Galaxies in Early Universe

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

Galaxies are strung along filaments in the vast cosmic web, which also contains enormous voids. Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Universe was Five Times Slower Soon after Big Bang, Astrophysicists Say

Jul 3, 2023 by News Staff

A fundamental consequence of the relativistic picture of expanding space is cosmological time dilation, where events in the distant Universe appear to...

An artist’s interpretation of an array of pulsars being affected by gravitational ripples produced by a supermassive black hole binary in a distant galaxy. Image credit: Aurore Simonnet / NANOGrav Collaboration.

Astrophysicists Detect Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves

Jun 29, 2023 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Collaboration have found evidence for gravitational waves...

GRB 191019A came from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / M. Garlick / M. Zamani.

Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Burst Traced to Nucleus of Ancient Galaxy

Jun 22, 2023 by News Staff

Unlike most gamma-ray bursts, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, a long gamma-ray burst event dubbed GRB...

IXPE and Chandra images have been combined to show X-ray data of the area around Sagittarius A. The lower panel combines IXPE data, in orange, with Chandra data in blue. The upper panel depicts a much wider field-of-view of the center of the Milky Way. The thin white lines layered onto the top panel frame the highlighted area, and indicate that the perspective in the bottom panel has been rotated approximately 45 degrees to the right. The combination of IXPE and Chandra data helped the astronomers determine that the X-ray light identified in the molecular clouds originated from Sagittarius A* during an outburst approximately 200 years ago. Image credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center / Marin et al. / CXC / SAO / L. Frattare / J.Major / K.Arcand.

IXPE Detects 200-Year-Old Flare from Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Jun 22, 2023 by News Staff

The center of the Milky Way Galaxy hosts Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole with a mass of about 4 million solar masses that is very quiescent....

The hyperluminous star-forming galaxy GN-z11 hosts an accreting black hole. Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. Oesch, Yale University / G. Brammer, STScI / P. van Dokkum, Yale University / G. Illingworth, University of California, Santa Cruz / Sci.News.

Webb Detects Small and Vigorous Black Hole in Early Universe

Jun 6, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

The newly-discovered black hole resides in the hyperluminous galaxy GN-z11 at a redshift of 11 and could have originated from a stellar mass seed at redshifts...

Color-coded position angles for all short and long radio filaments identified in the center of the Milky Way. Image credit: Yusef-Zadeh et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/acd54b.

MeerKAT Finds Hundreds of Horizontal Filaments in Milky Way’s Center

Jun 5, 2023 by News Staff

These mysterious structures likely originated a few million years ago when an outflow from Sagittarius A* — a supermassive black hole in the center...

An artist’s rendition of a giant star in orbit around a low-mass black hole. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

All Large Objects in Universe Will Eventually Evaporate, Astrophysicists Say

Jun 5, 2023 by News Staff

According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum state is populated by virtual particle pairs undergoing spontaneous creation and annihilation processes. These...

An artist’s impression of a jet emanating from NGC 4993. Image credit: J.A. Biretta et al / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Detect Variability in Extragalactic X-ray Jets

May 30, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers discovered only relatively recently that black hole jets emit X-rays, and how the jets accelerate particles to this high-energy state is a...

An artist’s impression of a black hole accretion. Image credit: John A. Paice.

Astronomers Observe Extraordinary Accretion Event in Distant Galaxy

May 15, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

AT2021lwx occurred nearly 8 billion years ago and was more than 10 times brighter than any known supernova explosion. The event was likely caused by the...

An artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole. Image credit: University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

Astronomers Detect Supermassive Black Holes in ‘Cosmic Noon’ Galaxy Pairs

May 11, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers at Newcastle University and Colby College have developed a new technique to determine how likely it is that two galaxies are very close together...

This composite image shows the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A: blue color shows X-ray light captured by Chandra, orange represents X-rays detected by IXPE, and optical light seen by ESO is colored white and gray. Image credit: NASA / MSFC / IXPE / Ehlert et al. / CXC / SAO / ESO / WFI / J.Schmidt.

IXPE Observes Jet from Centaurus A’s Supermassive Black Hole

May 4, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Centaurus A is located 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus, and represents the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky. This composite...

In this artist’s conception, M87*’s massive jet is seen rising up from the center of the black hole. Image credit: S. Dagnello, NRAO, AUI & NSF.

New Images of Messier 87’s Black Hole Reveal Glowing Ring and Powerful Jet

Apr 27, 2023 by News Staff

In 2017, astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration captured the first image of a black hole by coordinating radio dishes around...

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