Black hole

The universe is full of bizarre objects, and now astronomers have discovered a doozy – superheavy neutron stars that existed for only fractions of a second, before they collapsed into black holes.

Astronomers have spotted an incredibly bright flash of light beaming halfway across the universe. The strange light was estimated to throw off more light than one quadrillion Suns, and in an ironic twist came from one of the darkest objects possible.

Astronomers may have discovered a monster black hole that’s one of the closest to Earth known. With a mass equivalent to 12 Suns, the black hole was found to be quietly lurking “practically in our backyard,” according to the team.

Black holes chow down on stars that wander too close, producing a bright stellar show. But now a black hole has done something nobody’s ever seen before – it “burped up” material several years after eating a star, leaving astronomers baffled.

Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration have today revealed the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, produced using a network of radio telescopes around the world.

Astronomers believe they’ve detected the first “rogue” black hole, roaming the galaxy alone. The object made itself known when it passed in front of a background star, bending the light with its extreme gravity.

Contrary to their name, black holes are known to fire off flares from time to time, but exactly how this happens is shrouded in mystery. High-resolution simulations have now revealed how twisting magnetic fields can throw off huge amounts of energy.

A new model by a team of scientists led by Yale University suggests that the ever elusive dark matter that has so far escaped the detection of scientists may be trapped inside primordial black holes left over after the Big Bang.

A huge range of dark matter suspects are being investigated. In a new study, astronomers have searched for clouds of hypothetical ultralight particles that could congregate around black holes, and reveal themselves by sending out gravitational waves.

Astronomers have discovered the closest known pair of supermassive black holes – and that record has two meanings. Not only are they the closest pair to Earth, but they’re the closest to each other as well, heading for an eventual monster merger.

Astronomers have reported a bumper crop of new gravitational wave detections. The 35 new signals, comprising the third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3), help scientists probe the depths of the cosmos in more detail.

Astronomers have proposed a novel solution to one of the many mysteries of black holes – why do so many seem to be more massive than expected? A new model suggests that their growth may be “cosmologically coupled” to the expansion of the universe.