astronomers
Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inboxSign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Astronomers have found the most massive stellar black hole known in our own galaxy. The object is relatively close by, at least in black hole terms, sitting just 2,000 feet away. It is the largest black […]
OVER the past decade, spacecraft have beamed back reports from some truly awe-inspiring destinations within our solar system. Rovers have revealed vast river channels carved by ancient floods on Mars. Probes have zipped through the turbulent geysers erupting from Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. We have even flown past the frigid mountains of Pluto. But what […]
One of the brightest transient events is the result of a supermassive black hole beginning to feast on surrounding matter resulting in one of the most dramatic “switching on” events ever seen. Transients are astronomical events or objects that change in brightness over short periods of time, and the one powered by this greedy black […]
Daniel Stolte, University Communications, and Jessica Evans, Space Telescope Science Institute Today Quasars — shown here in an artist’s illustration— are some of the brightest objects in the universe. The energy released by the quasar’s supermassive black hole as it devours mass from its surroundings is widely considered to be the main driver in limiting […]
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On Wednesday evening, an international consortium of research collaborations revealed compelling evidence for the existence of a low-pitch hum of gravitational waves reverberating across the universe. The scientists strongly suspect that these gravitational waves are the collective echo of pairs of supermassive black holes — thousands of them, some as massive as a billion suns, […]
Once every 10,000 years or so, the center of a galaxy lights up as its supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star. This “tidal disruption event” happens in a literal flash, as the central black hole pulls in stellar material and blasts out huge amounts of radiation in the process. Astronomers know of around […]
For the first time, astronomers have spotted a jet blasting from the core of a distant galaxy that has changed directions. About 1% of the supermassive black holes, which reside at the center of most galaxies, have disks of gas and dust swirling around them. Debris from this disk that ventures toward growing black holes […]
In February, the Zwicky Transient Facility in California spotted a brilliant, sky-borne flash. It was a vivid flare, named AT 2022cmc, that provoked more questions than answers. Of course, sky flashes in general aren’t exactly a new thing. Astronomers have seen loads of these glimmers burst forth from deep space before — but this particular […]
New York, Nov 6: A team of astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab in the US, has discovered the closest-known Black Hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass Black Hole in the Milky Way whose close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an […]