A quasar is an extremely bright and distant point-like source visible to radio telescopes. The source is a so-called Active Galactic Nucleus, fueled by a supermassive black hole. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-quasar…
Tag: event horizon
The First Black Hole Ever Discovered is More Massive Than We Thought
Neel V. Patel, writing at MIT Technology Review: Einstein first predicted the existence of black holes when he published his theory of general relativity in 1916, describing how gravity shapes the fabric of spacetime. But astronomers didn’t spot one until 1964, some 6,070 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation. Geiger counters launched into space detected cosmic x-rays coming from a region…
Black holes leak energy when they eat plasma near the event horizon
When magnetic fields around a black hole reconnect, they can slow down plasma particles near the event horizon, which cause the black hole to lose energy when it swallows them Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2264389-black-holes-leak-energy-when-they-eat-plasma-near-the-event-horizon/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
What is a supernova?
A supernova is a star’s colossal explosion at the end of its life, potentially outshining its entire galaxy. Read about the causes and types of supernovae here. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-supernova…
How the world came to understand black holes
Earlier this month, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez split the 2020 physics Nobel Prize for decades of work on black holes. Click here to learn more about their monumental achievement and about the history of our understanding of these exotic objects in space. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nobel-prize-3-astrophysicists-black-holess-penrose-genzel-ghez…
Astronomers see a star ‘spaghettified’ by a black hole
Astronomers have spotted a rare blast of light from a star being ripped apart by a supermassive black hole. The phenomenon – known as a tidal disruption event – is the closest such flare recorded to date at just over 215 million light-years from Earth. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/star-spaghettified-by-black-hole-at2019qiz…
Black Hole Photo Makes Einstein’s Theory ‘500 Times Harder to Beat’
“The first image of a black hole, captured in 2019, has revealed more support for Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity,” reports CNN, adding that the new finding suggests his theory is now 500 times harder to beat. [W]hile light can’t escape the inside of a black hole, it’s possible for light to make a getaway in a region around the…
The Only Black Hole We’ve Ever Seen Has a Shadow That Wobbles
The supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy has a shadow crescent that moves, like a dancer in the dark. From a report: Over a year ago, scientists unleashed something incredible on the world: the first photo of a black hole ever taken. By putting together radio astronomy observations made with dishes across four continents, the collaboration known…
New analysis of black hole reveals a wobbling shadow
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration delivered the first image of a black hole, revealing M87*—the supermassive object in the center of the M87 galaxy. The team has now used the lessons learned last year to analyze the archival data sets from 2009-2013, some of them not published before. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-analysis-black-hole-reveals-shadow.html…
Insight-HXMT discovers closest high-speed jet to black hole
Insight-HXMT, China’s first space X-ray astronomical satellite, has discovered a low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) above 200 kiloelectron volts (keV) in a black hole binary, making it the highest energy low-frequency QPO ever found. The scientists also found that the QPO originated from the precession of a relativistic jet (high-speed outward-moving plasma stream) near the event horizon of the black hole. These…