Black Hole

Black Hole

There's no upper limit to how massive galaxies or black holes can be, but the most massive known star is only ~260 solar masses. Here's why.
universe bulk volume brane dimension
In the year 2000, physicists created a list of the ten most important unsolved problems in their field. 25 years later, here's where we are.
elements
When three wise men gifted baby Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they had no idea one was made from colliding neutron stars.
quantum entanglement qubit ER = EPR
There was a lot of hype and a lot of nonsense, but also some profoundly major advances. Here are the biggest ones you may have missed.
black hole
50 years ago, Stephen Hawking showed that black holes emit radiation and eventually decay away. That fate may now apply to everything.
Two images of the Sombrero Galaxy viewed edge-on. The top image, captured by JWST, shows a glowing blue center, while the bottom reveals a bright core with dust lanes.
The Sombrero is the closest bright, massive, edge-on galaxy to us. JWST's new image, taken with MIRI, finally shows what's under its hat.
gravitational wave effects on spacetime
Gravitational waves are the last signatures that are emitted by merging black holes. What happens when these two phenomena meet in space?
pulsar orbiting a low-mass star in an X-ray binary system
In astronomy, a star's initial mass determines its ultimate outcome in life. Unless, that is, a stellar companion alters the deal.
Bright cosmic explosion with flames and smoke surrounded by stars against a dark, starry background.
Black holes are the most massive individual objects, spanning up to a light-day across. So how do they make jets that affect the cosmic web?
A vibrant cosmic explosion with bright colors radiating outward, set against a starry space background, captures the mystery of a bizarre supernova.
In the year 1181, a "guest star" was recorded in the constellation of Cassiopeia. Its modern supernova remnant is weirder than we imagined.
ring nebula hubble jwst nircam miri
More than two years after JWST began science operations, our Universe now looks very different. Here are its biggest science contributions.
Illustration of Mars with overlaid data graphs and lines, offering analytical representations that unravel the mysteries of dark matter.
Watching for changes in the Red Planet’s orbit over time could be new way to detect passing dark matter.
time dilation
Time is relative, not absolute, as gravity and motion both cause time to dilate. Your head and feet, therefore, don't age at the same rate.
A vivid depiction of a cosmic event showing a jet of orange and red energy extending from a bright source in the vastness of space, surrounded by stars and interstellar matter.
With the discovery of Porphyrion, we've now seen black hole jets spanning 24 million light-years: the scale of the cosmic web.
White text on a black background reads "The Impact of Nothing.
3mins
From nothing to everything: How zero changed our understanding of the universe, forever.
A detailed image of two galaxies in space, one with spiral arms on the left and the other, more elliptical, on the right, surrounded by distant stars.
Galactic activity doesn't just arrive when supermassive black holes feast on matter. Before, during, and after all create fascinating signs.
JWST deep field vs hubble
The "little red dots" were touted as being too massive, too early, for cosmology to explain. With new knowledge, everything adds up.
A digital rendering of a black hole with a glowing, distorted light accretion disk around its event horizon in space, set against a pitch-black background.
A recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters claims to prove that a "kugelblitz" is not possible.
smbh growth evolution from direct collapse seed
Even in the very early Universe, there were heavy, supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. How did they get so big so fast?
Webb’s image of NGC 1512 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and shows a bright white point at the center with blue and yellow circles around it. The galaxy’s large bar is crossed by filamentary dust lanes that extend diagonally to the top left and bottom right. The bar is connected to a dense oval-shaped ring of orange spiral arms that start at the edges of the bar
In July of 2022, the first science images from JWST were unveiled. Two years later, it's changed our view of the Universe.
A graphical representation illustrating the concept of the big bang and the subsequent expansion of the universe, depicted by a transition from a singular point of energy to a wide, grid-like spread of galaxies and celestial elements
On the largest of cosmic scales, the Universe is expanding. But it isn't all-or-nothing everywhere, as "collapse" is also part of the story.
An artist's impression of a cluster of stars.
There was a time where no starlight was visible throughout the entire cosmos. That time was short-lived: shorter than astronomers imagined.
nasa merge black hole
Gravitational waves carry enormous amounts of energy, but spread out quickly once they leave the source. Could they ever create black holes?
A silver DeLorean car, modified to resemble the time machine from "Back to the Future," is parked on a street. People are standing nearby, marveling at the iconic vehicle, while an orange construction sign looms in the background, hinting at disruptions in travel time physics.
Traveling back in time is a staple of science fiction movies. But according to Einstein, it's a physical possibility that's truly allowed.
The sharpest optical images, for now, come from the Hubble Space Telescope. A ground-based technique can make images over 100 times sharper.
Abstract representation of a cosmic event with a burst of particles emanating from a central point, blending astrophysical imagery with geometric designs.
If you bring too much mass or energy together in one location, you'll inevitably create a black hole. So why didn't the Big Bang become one?
planetary nebulae infrared spitzer
In ~7 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and die. So will every star, eventually. Here are the different fates they'll encounter.
elements
In 2017, we detected gold being forged in a neutron star-neutron star merger. Now, in 2024, the amounts created simply don't add up.
A vibrant image of the Horsehead Nebula captured by JWST, featuring a radiant blue and white glow against a deep red starry background.
The most iconic "dark nebula" of all lights up under JWST's infrared gaze. Here's what's newly discovered inside.
Holograms preserve all of an object's 3D information, but on a 2D surface. Could the holographic Universe idea lead us to higher dimensions?