Star's 'cry' heralds new era for testing relativity

(Phys.org) -- Last year, astronomers discovered a quiescent black hole in a distant galaxy that erupted after shredding and consuming a passing star. Now researchers have identified a distinctive X-ray signal observed in ...

X-ray 'echoes' map a supermassive black hole's environs

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers using data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton satellite has identified a long-sought X-ray "echo" that promises a new way to probe supersized black holes in ...

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. In contrast, ...

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 study makes ...

WISE mission captures black hole's wildly flaring jet

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Black holes spinning faster than ever before

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two UK astronomers have found that the giant black holes in the centre of galaxies are on average spinning faster than at any time in the history of the Universe. Dr Alejo Martinez-Sansigre of the University ...

Black hole spin may create jets that control galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scattered throughout every galaxy are black holes, regions that gobble up matter and energy. Although we can't see black holes, scientists can infer their size, location and other properties by using sensitive ...

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