Observations of high-mass star seeds defy models

Astronomers have mapped 39 interstellar clouds where high-mass stars are expected to form. This large data set shows that the accepted model of low-mass star formation needs to be expanded to explain the formation of high-mass ...

Disks, spikes and clouds: A peek into a black hole's back yard

The first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015 has opened a new window on the universe, enabling in particular the observation of the merger of pairs of massive black holes. This young field of research has matured ...

Dying stars' cocoons could be new source of gravitational waves

So far, astrophysicists have only detected gravitational waves from binary systems—the mergers of either two black holes, two neutron stars or one of each. Although astrophysicists theoretically should be able to detect ...

NASA animation sizes up the universe's biggest black holes

A new NASA animation highlights the "super" in supermassive black holes. These monsters lurk in the centers of most big galaxies, including our own Milky Way, and contain between 100,000 and tens of billions of times more ...

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