Astronomers exploring the distant universe with NASA’s most powerful telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, have found a class of galaxies that challenge even the most talented creatures at mimicking—like the mimic octopus. This creature can imitate other marine animals to avoid predators. Need to be a flatfish? No problem. Need to be a sea… Read More »
When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. Most of the blue dots in this sky scan are supermassive black holes that emit powerful X-rays. | Credit: Fan Zou (Penn State) and the XMM-SERVS Collaboration This article was originally published at: Speech. The publication contributed the article… Read More »
When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. Simulation of a black hole tearing apart an unfortunate star and throwing it out “like bad curry” | Source: Daniel Price (2024) “What happens when you throw a star into a black hole?” That’s not a question we can… Read More »
When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. An illustration shows an intermediate-mass black hole in space. | Credit: Robert Lea For decades, astronomers have searched with little joy for signs of “missing link” black holes—black holes with masses between “stellar-mass black holes” and “supermassive black holes.”… Read More »
When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. A white disk with dark bands running through it and long purple lines coming out of its poles. Next to it is a wavy orange square. | Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada (ESO) / C Richards/MD Smith/University of Kent Galaxies… Read More »
The universe’s expansion rate is accelerating across the cosmos, driven by a mysterious force known as dark energy, but perhaps this acceleration isn’t happening at the boundaries of black holes, new research suggests. Rather than implying that dark energy does not move around the boundaries of black holes, this idea suggests that this mysterious force… Read More »
Scientists have discovered that the Milky Way’s diffuse outer halo is devoid of any unusually large black holes. The discovery could spell bad news for theories that suggest dark matter, the universe’s most mysterious “stuff,” is composed of primordial black holes that formed in the early moments after the Big Bang. Dark matter is confusing… Read More »
Just 900 million years after the Big Bang, a pair of quasars have been discovered spiraling towards a massive merger, illuminating the “cosmic dawn”. They are the first quasar The couple was detected this far back in cosmic time. Quasars are growing rapidly supermassive black holes in the nuclei of the hyperactive galaxies. Showers of… Read More »
One of the most profound messages Stephen Hawking left to humanity is that nothing lasts forever, and scientists may finally be ready to prove it. This idea was conveyed in arguably Hawking’s most important work: the hypothesis that black holes “leak” thermal radiation, evaporating in the process and ending their existence in a final explosion.… Read More »
The search for tiny black holes, missing from the Big Bang, may be about to heat up. Just as the trail of such tiny black holes appears to have cooled, an international team of scientists has found clues in quantum physics that could reopen the case. One reason why the hunt for these so-called primordial… Read More »