First-Ever Magnetic Map of Milky Way’s Black Hole Reveals a Mystery
Polarized light from Sagittarius A*, our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, shows swirling magnetic fields that may hint at the presence of an unseen jet
Black Holes
The Brightest Quasar Ever Seen Eats a ‘Sun’ Every Day
The quasar, as bright as 500 trillion suns, has evaded astronomers for over 40 years because of its incredible luminosity
Space Lasers Will Seek a New Kind of Gravitational Waves
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will open a new era in astronomy that brings scientists to the brink of studying gravitational waves from the beginning of time
This Record-Breaking Black Hole Could Help Solve a Cosmic Mystery
The earliest active supermassive black hole ever seen offers clues on how these enigmatic objects first formed
Supermassive Black Hole Feeding Frenzies May Explain Blinking Quasars
A new simulation shows black holes ripping apart and consuming their accretion disk in a matter of months, which may explain why some quasars quickly brighten and dim
Bizarre Quantum Theory Explains Why Your Coffee Takes So Long to Drip through a Narrow Filter
Physicist John Cardy and his colleague just won the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. We spoke with Cardy about conformal field theory, 2D black holes and coffee filters
JWST Finds Strange Harmony in Early Galaxies and Black Holes
Black holes in the extraordinarily distant cosmos are out of tune with their host galaxies, offering insights into their formation
Oppenheimer Almost Discovered Black Holes Before He Became ‘Destroyer of Worlds’
Before leading the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer co-authored a paper explaining that the most massive stars must eventually become what we would now call a black hole
The Universe Is Abuzz with Giant Gravitational Waves, and Scientists Just Heard Them (Maybe)
Researchers, using the galaxy as a detector, believe they have detected gravitational waves from monster black holes for the first time.
First Evidence of Giant Gravitational Waves Thrills Astronomers
Astrophysicists are tuning in to a never-before-seen type of gravitational wave spawned by pairs of supermassive black holes
Black Holes Evaporate—Now Physicists Think Everything Else Does, Too
Particle by particle, all matter may eventually disappear, according to new calculations
Listen to the Astonishing ‘Chirp’ of Two Black Holes Merging
Some of the most violent cosmic collisions occur silently in the vacuum of space, but with the right instrumental ears, we can still hear it happen. Here’s how.