supermassive black hole tagged posts

A black hole devouring a star. Credit: NASA

An international team of astrophysicists led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist has for the first time witnessed a star being swallowed by a black hole and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light.
The finding tracks the star—about the size of our sun—as it shifts from its customary path, slips into the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole and is sucked in. “These events are extremely rare,” van Velzen said. “It’s the first time we see everything from the stellar destruction followed by the launch of a conical outflow, also called a jet, and we watched it unfold over several months.”

Astrophysicists had predicted that when a black hole is force-fed a large amount of gas, in this case a whole star, then a ...

The team modeled the lensing effects and corrected for them to reveal the distribution of huge stellar cradles in the monstrous galaxy shown in the image above. As a bonus, the same model indicates, for the first time, the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the foreground galaxy.

Researchers have depicted a monstrous galaxy near the edge of the charted Universe with unprecedented detail using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) with the assistance of a ‘natural telescope’ ie gravitational lens.

The galaxy is seen at a time when the Universe was 15% of its current age, only 2.4 billion years after Big Bang. The light has taken over twice the age of the Earth to reach us (11...

A “radio phoenix” has been discovered using X-ray, radio, and optical data. This system contains the collision of two galaxy clusters located about 1.6 billion light years from Earth. The collision re-energized a regeneration of vast clouds of high-energy particles that primarily radiate at radio frequencies. Understanding how galaxy clusters grow over time, including through collisions, is important for cosmology. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Hamburg/F. de Gasperin et al; Optical: SDSS; Radio: NRAO/VLA

Astronomers have found evidence for a faded electron cloud “coming back to life,” like the phoenix, after 2 galaxy clusters collided. This “radio phoenix,” so-called because the high-energy electrons radiate primarily at radio frequencies, is found in Abell 1033. The system is located about 1...

An artist’s illustration of a supermassive black hole, actively feasting on its surroundings. The central black hole is hidden from direct view by a thick layer of encircling gas and dust. Credit: NASA/ESA.

Using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite observatory, a Durnham University team detected high-energy xrays from 5 supermassive black holes previously clouded from direct view by dust and gas. It supports the theory that potentially millions more supermassive black holes exist in the Universe, but are hidden from view.

The scientists pointed NuSTAR at 9 candidate hidden supermassive black holes that were thought to be extremely active at the centre of galaxies, but where the full extent of this activity was potentially obscured from view.
High-energy x-r...