News tagged with black holes

Ghostly gamma-ray beams blast from Milky Way's center

(Phys.org) -- As galaxies go, our Milky Way is pretty quiet. Active galaxies have cores that glow brightly, powered by supermassive black holes swallowing material, and often spit twin jets in opposite directions. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created 4 hours ago | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Australia hails surprise super-telescope decision

Australia has hailed a surprise decision giving it a role in a radio telescope project aimed at revolutionising astronomy, vowing to draw on its decades of experience in space science.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 26, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 3

A pinwheel in many colors

(Phys.org) -- This image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, or also known as M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-rays from four of NASA's space-based telescopes. This multi-spectral view shows ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 25, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

A planetary system that never was teaches about those that may be

While Kepler and similar missions are turning up planets by the fist full, there’s long been many places that astronomers haven’t expected to find planetary systems. The main places include regions ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

NASA's NuSTAR gearing up for launch

(Phys.org) -- Final pre-launch preparations are underway for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The mission, which will use X-ray vision to hunt for hidden black holes, is scheduled to ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Every black hole contains a new universe: A physicist presents a solution to present-day cosmic mysteries

Our universe may exist inside a black hole. This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today. It's a theory that has been explored ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 18, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (86) | comments 238 | with audio podcast

Three-telescope interferometry allows astrophysicists to observe how black holes are fueled

(Phys.org) -- By combining the light of three powerful infrared telescopes, an international research team has observed the active accretion phase of a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy tens ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (13) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A deeper look at Centaurus A

(Phys.org) -- The strange galaxy Centaurus A is pictured in a new image from the European Southern Observatory. With a total exposure time of more than 50 hours this is probably the deepest view of this peculiar ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Astrophysicists discover new heating source in cosmological structure formation

(Phys.org) -- So far, astrophysicists thought that super-massive black holes can only influence their immediate surroundings. A collaboration of scientists at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (11) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Massive black holes halt star birth in distant galaxies

Astronomers, using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory, have shown that the number of stars that form during the early lives of galaxies may be influenced by the massive black holes ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Black hole caught red-handed in a stellar homicide

(Phys.org) -- Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 07, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 2

Diagnosing a black hole flare

(Phys.org) -- Black holes can come in a wide range of masses. Some, with only about one solar mass, result from the supernova death of a massive star, while those at the center of galaxies (called supermassive ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists watch black hole feast on unlucky star

Scientists have witnessed the rare spectacle of a supermassive black hole devouring a star that had ventured too close -- an event that occurs about once in 10,000 years, they reported on Wednesday.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (20) | comments 75

Rogue stars ejected from the galaxy are found in intergalactic space

It's very difficult to kick a star out of the galaxy.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

NASA's Chandra sees remarkable outburst from old black hole

An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using NASA's Chandra ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Black hole

In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits it, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect blackbody in thermodynamics. Quantum analysis of black holes shows them to possess a temperature and Hawking radiation.

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. Alternatively, one can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole, from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes. Such observations have resulted in the scientific consensus that, barring a breakdown in our understanding of nature, black holes do exist in our universe.

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