Einstein's Cross under the gravitational microlens

A Spanish research team has obtained measurements for the innermost region of a disc of matter in orbital motion around a supermassive black hole in the quasar known as Einstein's Cross (Q2237-0305). It constitutes the most ...

A new technique to gauge the distant universe

Scientists have developed a technique to use quasars – powerful sources driven by supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies – to study the universe's history and composition. To demonstrate the new method, based ...

Image: Hubble sees elegant spiral hiding a hungry monster

NGC 4639 is a beautiful example of a type of galaxy known as a barred spiral. It lies over 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo and is one of about 1,500 galaxies that make up the Virgo Cluster.

Existence of a group of 'quiet' quasars confirmed

Aeons ago, the universe was different: mergers of galaxies were common and gigantic black holes with masses equivalent to billions of times that of the Sun formed in their nuclei. As they captured the surrounding gas, these ...

Researchers propose using distant quasars to test Bell's theorem

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, MIT researchers propose an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell's inequality—a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, ...

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