Black hole news, features and articles

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An illustration of a black hole at the top of the screen and a white orb getting ripped apart toward the bottom.

Astronomers find black hole's favorite snack: 'The star appears to be living to die another day'

By Sharmila Kuthunur published

Astronomers have pinned down a faraway black hole's snack schedule after watching it devour a star across years.

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An illustration of two supermassive black holes about to collide as gravitational waves spill into space

'Final parsec problem' that makes supermassive black holes impossible to explain could finally have a solution

By Jonathan Gilbert published

A new study helps solve the "final parsec problem" that has made supermassive black hole formation impossible to explain, pointing to a strange form of dark matter as the key.

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An artist's impression of a black hole.

Ultra-rare black hole found hiding in the center of the Milky Way

By Ben Turner published

A potential intermediate-mass black hole is hiding right next to our galaxy's supermassive black hole.

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This computer-simulated image shows a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The black region in the center represents the black hole’s event horizon, where no light can escape the massive object’s gravitational grip. The black hole’s powerful gravity distorts space around it like a funhouse mirror. Light from background stars is stretched and smeared as the stars skim by the black hole.

Black hole growth is slowing down in the universe. New research could help explain why.

By Fan Zou, W. Niel Brandt published

Black hole growth is slowing down, suggests a team of astrophysicists who looked back in time across the universe's 13.8 billion-year history.

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An artist's rendering of a black hole

What would happen if a black hole wandered into our solar system?

By Ashley Hamer published

Black holes aren't "cosmic vacuum cleaners," but what would happen if one wandered into our solar system?

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An artist's interpretation of a black hole surrounded by stars

Milky Way's rarest black hole may lurk behind 7 stars that 'shouldn't be there'

By Harry Baker published

Seven strangely-behaving stars in the Milky Way's Omega Centauri cluster may be under the influence of an extremely rare type of black hole, new research suggests.

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A swirling orange and red disc with a black sphere at its center with a widing white line emerging from it. A black box with pixelated red, green and white shapes within it

James Webb Space Telescope sees an ancient black hole dance with colliding galaxies

By Robert Lea published

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have witnessed the dramatic dance between a supermassive black hole-powered quasar and merging galaxies less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

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An artist's rendering of a black hole

Study finds black holes made from light are impossible — challenging Einstein's theory of relativity

By Andrey Feldman published

New theoretical research finds that it's impossible to form a black hole with the energy of light particles alone, poking a hole in Einstein's theory of general relativity.

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Mysterious objects or "little red dots" seen in the early universe by the JWST

Forbidden black holes and ancient stars hide in these 'tiny red dots'

By Robert Lea published

The James Webb Space Telescope found "tiny red dots" in the early universe representing overgrown supermassive black holes and stars that are impossibly old for the infant cosmos.

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illustration of a quasar

This impossibly massive black hole wasn't very hungry during the dawn of time

By Robert Lea published

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered an improbably huge black hole near the dawn of time, which doesn't seem to be eating near as much as it should.

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