Category Astronomy/Space

The fastest-growing black hole in the universe is 34 billion times the mass of our sun and feasts on a meal the equivalent of our sun each day, according to a new study.

This massive, hungry black hole was first identified and studied by researchers in May 2018. Previously, they believed it consumed the mass equivalent to our sun every two days. Now, they have a better understanding of this monster black hole and its gluttonous behavior.

The black hole is known as J2157 and exists more than 12 billion light-years back in the distant universe. Astronomers are trying to understand how such massive black holes could evolve during the early days of the universe. The researchers continue to search for more massive black holes like this one to understand how they have grown.

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New observations could challenge previous theories of how the Moon was formed. The popular hypothesis contends that the Moon was formed by a Mars-sized body colliding with Earth’s upper crust which is poor in metals. But new research suggests the Moon’s subsurface is more metal-rich than previously thought, providing new insights that could challenge our understanding of that process.

Life on Earth would not be possible without the Moon; it keeps our planet’s axis of rotation stable, which controls seasons and regulates our climate. However, there has been considerable debate over how the Moon was formed...

SRON-astronomers have found the signature for aluminum oxide (AlO) in the spectrum of exoplanet WASP-43b. This came as a surprise because AlO is expected to stay hidden in the lower atmospheric layers. It is only the second time that astronomers have observed the molecule in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The results are published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on July 1.

If you think planets like Mars or Jupiter are far away, try exoplanets. When you look up at the night sky and search for the closest exoplanet—an Earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri—you might as well look for the footprints on the moon. And that is only considering size; exoplanets are outshined by their host star about 1 billion times...

Measurements from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have enabled astronomers to greatly improve their understanding of the bizarre environment of KELT-9 b, one of the hottest planets known.

“The weirdness factor is high with KELT-9 b,” said John Ahlers, an astronomer at Universities Space Research Association in Columbia, Maryland, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland...