Astronomical black holes are compact astrophysical systems characterized by regions of spacetime where gravity is so strong that no matter or radiation can escape beyond the event horizon. They are described by solutions to Einstein’s field equations, typically approximated by the Kerr or Schwarzschild metrics, and are defined by mass, spin, and (negligible) charge. Formed primarily via stellar core collapse or hierarchical mergers, they interact with their environments through accretion disks, relativistic jets, and gravitational-wave emission. Astronomical black holes span stellar-mass to supermassive regimes, influencing galactic dynamics, high-energy radiation processes, and cosmological structure formation.
Thanks to the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, University of Michigan researchers are helping chip away at one of astronomy's cosmic mysteries: The universe's most massive galaxies appear to be missing stars.
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2026
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Astronomers have detected one of the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever seen from a distant supermassive black hole. Using XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, a team studied a hyper-luminous quasar at cosmic noon and found two distinct ...
Sarah Pappert is a Ph.D. candidate in astrophysics at the TUM School of Natural Sciences and conducts research at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. She is supervised by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel and Prof. ...
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2026
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Stars shine because atoms fuse in their interiors, releasing energy. When a very massive star has exhausted its nuclear fuel, radiation pressure can no longer provide sufficient counterforce to gravity. The star then collapses ...
General Physics
Jun 11, 2026
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How supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of galaxies accrete material, how they feed back into the surrounding region, and how they regulate these processes to influence the evolution of their galaxies are all ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2026
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The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot's spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces.
Astronomy
Jun 10, 2026
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We don't know whether theorized primordial black holes (PBH) are real. If they are, they formed in the very early universe, when physics was much different. They had no stellar progenitors and were created by the direct collapse ...
Astronomy
Jun 8, 2026
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A new theoretical study may have cracked one of the most puzzling discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): Little Red Dots, spotted across the early universe. The paper, posted to the arXiv preprint server on ...
A supermassive black hole lies at the heart of every galaxy, including the Milky Way. When a black hole is active, it pulls material in as a whirlpool of high-temperature gas and dust. As this cosmic material piles up and ...
Astronomy
Jun 8, 2026
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New simulations show that interactions with a magnetic field can work to decrease the distance between still forming binary protostars. These results can help explain the characteristics of the binary star systems observed ...
Astronomy
Jun 5, 2026
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