The spin of the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way

Once a black hole forms, its intense gravitational field produces a surface beyond which even light cannot escape, and it appears black to outsiders. All the details of the complex mix of matter and energy in its past are ...

Colossal black holes locked in dance at heart of galaxy

Locked in an epic cosmic waltz 9 billion light years away, two supermassive black holes appear to be orbiting around each other every two years. The two giant bodies each have masses that are hundreds of millions of times ...

Hubble gazes into a black hole of puzzling lightness

The beautiful spiral galaxy visible in the center of the image is known as RX J1140.1+0307, a galaxy in the Virgo constellation imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and it presents an interesting puzzle. At first ...

Fermi mission finds hints of gamma-ray cycle in an active galaxy

Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected hints of periodic changes in the brightness of a so-called "active" galaxy, whose emissions are powered by a supersized black hole. If confirmed, ...

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