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

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

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

Repulsive gravity as an alternative to dark energy (Part 2: In the quantum vacuum)

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the past few years, CERN physicist Dragan Hajdukovic has been investigating what he thinks may be a widely overlooked part of the cosmos: the quantum vacuum. He suggests that the quantum vacuum has ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (77) | comments 143 | with audio podcast report

Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity

(PhysOrg.com) -- As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 03, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (34) | comments 106 | with audio podcast feature

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

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

Could primordial black holes be dark matter?

(PhysOrg.com) -- “We know that about 25% of the matter in the universe is dark matter, but we don’t know what it is,” Michael Kesden tells PhysOrg.com. “There are a number of different theories about what da ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 21, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (27) | comments 48 | with audio podcast feature

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

Physicists create sonic black hole in the lab

(PhysOrg.com) -- Black holes get their name because they absorb all incoming light, and are so dense that none of that light can escape their event horizon. In a new study, scientists have created a sonic ...

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 10, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (38) | comments 9 | with audio podcast feature

NASA satellite could reveal if primordial black holes are dark matter

(PhysOrg.com) -- The primary objective of NASA’s Kepler satellite, which was launched in March 2009 to orbit the Sun, is to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. But now ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 09, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (18) | comments 46 | with audio podcast feature

Hubble directly observes the disc around a black hole

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc -- a glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy's central black hole. Their ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 04, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (46) | comments 18 | 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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