Tag

Black Holes

All articles tagged with #black holes

science13 hours ago•4 min saved

Webb dots reveal early supermassive black holes in tiny galaxies

A Nature Astronomy study using JWST data from the COSMOS-Web region suggests the mysterious 'little red dots' are the earliest supermassive black holes, residing in very compact host galaxies that contain about 1 billion stars. The host galaxies are ~4% of the Milky Way’s size and contribute only ~10% of the dots’ light, while the central black holes (roughly 10^7–10^9 solar masses) dominate the emission. This implies black holes may grow most of their mass before their galaxies form most of their stars, shedding light on how black holes and galaxies co-evolve; the team analyzed 217 JWST images across a region about three times the Moon’s size to measure host properties and applied PSF subtraction to isolate the faint hosts.

via The Conversation|

#astronomy #black-holes #early-universe

science21 hours ago•9 min saved

JWST Discovers a Black Hole Star Buried in Hydrogen at Cosmic Dawn

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope spotted MoM-BH*-1, a compact, red, ultra-bright source from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang that is too luminous for nuclear fusion. The leading model places a ~100,000-solar-mass black hole inside a dense hydrogen envelope, with accretion energy reprocessed by the surrounding gas to produce star-like light. If confirmed, this “black hole star” could reveal how massive black holes grow in the early universe and help explain JWST’s mysterious little red dots.

via SciTechDaily|

#astronomy #black-holes #cosmic-dawn

space-and-astronomy6 days ago•55 min saved

Triple black holes in a distant galaxy reveal rapid early-universe growth

Astronomers using the JWST have identified three active black holes in the distant galaxy J0148-4214, about 12.5 billion light-years away. Two lie at the core (80 million and 600,000 solar masses) and are 620 light-years apart, while a third, ~2 million solar masses, sits ~5,500 light-years away and may merge with the pair or escape. The system supports rapid black-hole growth in the early universe via mergers and foreshadows future low-frequency gravitational-wave detections by space-based observatories like LISA.

via Yahoo|

#black-holes #galaxy-mergers #gravitational-waves

space7 days ago•161 min saved

Cosmic trio of supermassive black holes spotted in a distant galaxy

Using JWST/NIRSpec, astronomers found three active supermassive black holes in the distant galaxy J0148-4214—a central 80‑million-solar-mass hole, a 600,000-solar-mass companion, and a ~2‑million-solar-mass third hole—suggesting rapid early‑universe black‑hole growth via mergers; the third hole’s fate is uncertain, but such systems could emit long‑wavelength gravitational waves detectable by future space‑based observatories like LISA.

via Space|

#black-holes #galaxy-j0148-4214 #gravitational-waves

space-and-astronomy10 days ago•48 min saved

Webb Uncovers a Black Hole Star: The Cosmos’ New Object Class

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have identified MoM-BH*-1—a black hole star about 100,000 solar masses formed less than 700 million years after the Big Bang. Its center is a black hole that relentlessly accretes matter, emitting about 100 billion times more energy than a typical star, while a dense gas shell makes it appear star-sized. The finding suggests other so-called 'Little Red Dots' could be black hole stars, potentially reshaping our understanding of early galaxies and black hole growth.

via Yahoo|

#astronomy #black-holes #early-universe

space11 days ago•159 min saved

Quasar winds fling energy 300,000 light-years into intergalactic space

A study led by Satoshi Yamada finds winds from an actively feeding supermassive black hole in quasar H1821+643 propel energy far beyond its host galaxy, driving turbulence in hot gas out to about 300,000 light-years and equaling billions of supernova explosions. Using XRISM data on ionized iron, the researchers measured the speed and turbulence of the outflows, showing black holes can influence the surrounding cluster environment far beyond the galaxy itself.

via Space|

#black-holes #energy-outflow #galactic-winds

space11 days ago•168 min saved

JWST uncovers the universe’s closest dual black holes in its early era

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (with ALMA) confirm LID-1166—the closest pair of actively feeding supermassive black holes observed this early in cosmic history. The dual SMBHs sit about 4,900 light-years apart in a merging galaxy roughly 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang, with distinct spectral signals and surrounding cold gas indicating two active nuclei. This first close-pair observation helps explain how supermassive black holes grew so rapidly in the early universe and sheds light on galaxy–black hole co-evolution.

via Live Science|

#astronomy #black-holes #galaxy-mergers

science13 days ago•157 min saved

Two Million X-ray Sources Reveal New High-Energy Cosmos

Astronomers’ second public data release from the German-led eROSITA X-ray telescope, DR2, catalogs nearly 2 million X-ray sources—over 1.9 million point-like objects (mostly active supermassive black holes and Milky Way stars) and about 64,000 extended sources (galaxy clusters and remnants). By linking X-ray detections to optical/IR counterparts, DR2 provides the most comprehensive, uniform view of the high-energy universe to date, enabling robust studies of black-hole growth, galaxy evolution, and large-scale cosmic structures; a future DR3 is planned for 2028, effectively nearly doubling our view of the high-energy cosmos.

via Space|

#black-holes #dr2-catalog #erosita

science14 days ago•22 min saved

Stephen Hawking: A Life Spanning Black Holes, Time, and a Global Love of Science

British physicist Stephen Hawking, famed for Hawking radiation and popularizing cosmology and black hole physics, died in 2018 after living for decades with ALS. The article traces his career from Cambridge's Lucasian Professorship to bestselling works like A Brief History of Time, his pop culture presence, and the enduring message that life is brief but collective scientific progress can illuminate the universe.

via Diario AS|

#als #black-holes #cosmology

space-and-astronomy14 days ago•49 min saved

JWST imagery hints the 'little red dots' are distant galactic cores, not new objects

New JWST imagery suggests the enigmatic 'little red dots' seen in deep-field images are likely ordinary distant galaxies whose bright centers outshine the rest, rather than a new class of object. Researchers used the nearby spiral galaxy Saguaro (about 3.3 billion years after the Big Bang) to model how such galaxies would look at earlier epochs, showing that LRDs could be early-universe galaxies with active nuclei and offering clues about how galaxies and their central black holes grew over cosmic time.

via Yahoo|

#black-holes #galaxy-evolution #james-webb-space-telescope

science20 days ago•4 min saved

Thermodynamics May Foretell the Final Fate of Merging Black Holes

A study of non-spinning binary black hole mergers shows the remnant’s mass and spin align closely with the Kerr entropy maximum, matching numerical relativity predictions within a few percent and suggesting a maximum-entropy principle could govern dynamical mergers.

via Physics World|

#black-holes #entropy #gravitational-waves

space-and-spaceflight21 days ago•16 min saved

Black Holes Regurgitate Their Meals: Real-Time Gas Expulsions Revealed

Astronomers studying a 2023 tidal disruption event around the supermassive black hole Swift J1727.8-1613 found that a substantial fraction of the star’s material is expelled back into space after being drawn in, suggesting black holes can regurgitate matter and that the outflow could rival the amount swallowed, challenging the idea that these cosmic behemoths simply gobble everything.

via Gizmodo|

#black-holes #gas-outflow #space-and-spaceflight

science22 days ago•6 min saved

Milky Way hides 170 million unseen stellar-mass black holes, new simulations suggest

A team modeling the Milky Way’s 13.6-billion-year history estimates about 170 million stellar-mass black holes lie throughout the Galaxy, with their distribution and motions shaped by natal kicks; upcoming observations should test these predictions and shed light on how massive stars die and how galaxies evolve.

via ScienceAlert|

#black-holes #galactic-evolution #milky-way

science23 days ago•15 min saved

Webb Telescope Rewrites the Rules of the Early Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope’s look back to the first billion years of the cosmos is upending standard theories with unexpected finds — from a deluge of little red dots and surprisingly massive black holes to diverse, bursty early galaxies — spurring new ideas like direct-collapse seeds, super-Eddington accretion, and refined simulations to explain cosmic dawn and galaxy formation.

via WIRED|

#black-holes #cosmic-dawn #early-universe

space27 days ago•8 min saved

First Image Captures Two Supermassive Black Holes Dancing in OJ287

Astronomers using a radio telescope array that stretches from Earth toward the Moon, including the RadioAstron satellite, captured the first image of two supermassive black holes orbiting each other in the quasar OJ287 (18 billion and 150 million solar masses, 12-year period). The system’s disk-crossing bursts, revealed by high-resolution radio imaging, mark a milestone in black-hole physics and radio astronomy, with future gravitational-wave studies expected from the eLisa mission in the 2030s.

via futura-sciences.com|

#black-holes #interferometry #oj287