Supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may have a friend

Do supermassive black holes have friends? The nature of galaxy formation suggests that the answer is yes, and in fact, pairs of supermassive black holes should be common in the universe. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-12-supermassive-black-hole-center-galaxy.html…

A second black hole at our galaxy’s center?

There’s a supermassive black hole – 4 million times our sun’s mass – in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers who’ve measured star movements near this central black hole are now saying there might be a 2nd companion black hole near it. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/supermassive-black-hole-milky-way-galaxys-center-may-have-friend…

A new way to measure cosmic black holes

Supermassive black holes are the largest black holes, with masses that can exceed a billion Suns. Just this spring, the first-ever image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy was taken, and researchers recently spotted the largest supermassive black hole ever seen. Despite these groundbreaking efforts, figuring out how these black holes drive a galaxy’s…

Thousands of exoplanets may orbit supermassive black holes

It sounds unbelievable, but a new study from Kagoshima University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan says that exoplanets – thousands of them – could be orbiting supermassive black holes. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/thousands-of-exoplanets-may-orbit-supermassive-black-holes…

Planets around a black hole? Calculations show possibility of bizarre worlds

Theoreticians in two fields defied the received wisdom that planets only orbit stars like the sun. They proposed the possibility of thousands of planets around a supermassive black hole. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-11-planets-black-hole-possibility-bizarre.html…

Black hole hurls star out of Milky Way

Astronomers have spotted a star – S5-HVs1 – speeding out of the Milky Way at around 4 million miles (more than 6 million km) per hour. They believe it’s being ejected from our galaxy after venturing too near the giant black hole at the Milky Way’s heart about 5 million years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/black-hole-hurls-star-out-of-milky-way…

Star Ejected from Milky Way’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ Reaches Mind-Blowing Speed

As humankind’s ancestors were learning to walk upright, a star was launched out of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy at a staggering 3.7 million mph (6 million km/h). Source: https://www.livescience.com/star-ejected-milky-way.html

TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star

TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/tess-captures-black-hole-shred-star-video…

TESS planet-hunter shows you the southern sky

Mosaic of the southern sky constructed from 208 images by NASA’s TESS spacecraft, taken during the mission’s first year of science operations. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/tess-panorama-southern-sky-video…