A binary system containing a massive star and possibly a black hole, together being a source of intense X-rays, has been shown to be a smaller-scale example of some of the brightest quasars on Earth. Universe. New findings from an international team used NASA‘S Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer spacecraft (IXPE), approximately 24,000 images of an… Read More »
NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Telescope could use the grisly death of stars being torn apart by black holes to hunt for the universe’s first population of stellar bodies. These early stars, referred to (somewhat confusingly) as Population III (Pop III) stars, were very different from the sun and other stars seen in the cosmos… Read More »
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists have finally unraveled the mysterious origins of “BOAT,” possibly the largest cosmic explosion since the Big Bang. The brightest gamma-ray burst of all time (hence the acronym Brightest of All Time), a.k.a. BOAT, appears to have been launched by a supernova explosion accompanying the death and collapse… Read More »
Scientists have discovered the terrifying secret behind the apparent youth of some stars at the heart of the Milky Way; stars participating in a kind of cosmic destruction derby around our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*. Like a cosmic version of Elizabeth Bathory, the 17th-century serial killer who allegedly tried to… Read More »
A new study of a rare and short-lived type of galaxy has found that such objects harbor dormant supermassive black holes that briefly wake up and tear apart a massive star, devouring its remains as a giant cosmic breakfast. “Compact Symmetric Objects,” or CSOs, are active galaxies where two jets explode at nearly the speed… Read More »
A neutron star is the remains of a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion. As a whole, neutron stars are considered some of the most extreme objects in the known universe – and this is especially true when these incredibly dense stellar remnants exist alongside companion stars (that are not yet “dead”)… Read More »
Scientists may have discovered how a supernova relatively close to Earth was adorned with a remarkable “string of pearls” formation. Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) represents the remnants of a massive cosmic explosion that ripped apart a massive star and left behind a neutron star surrounded by stellar material. It is located in a satellite galaxy… Read More »
Often the most exciting black hole news surrounds the biggest, baddest and most violent voids we can imagine. I’m talking about supermassive black holes with masses billions of times that of the Sun; Called quasars, they eat away at the matter around them and spew out the excess so aggressively that they create patterns of… Read More »
Scientists have discovered evidence of a massive star from the early universe that does not fit our current understanding of the universe. The ancient star-shaped strange ball that researchers have dubbed the “Barbenheimer Star” likely had a never-before-seen mixture of elements at its core—it later died a seemingly impossible death while giving birth to an… Read More »
Astronomers have discovered a mysterious object in the Milky Way that is more massive than the heaviest neutron star but lighter than the smallest black hole. The mysterious object could help scientists better determine where to draw the dividing line between neutron stars and black holes, both of which are born when a massive star… Read More »