Black holes could take us to the future, and maybe even the past. The hard part would be surviving the trip.
When two neutron stars merge and create a black hole, they produce a powerful blast of gamma rays.
A. Simonnet (Sonoma State Univ.) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Gamma-ray bursts occur when a massive star explodes or when two neutron stars merge. A newly discovered burst has puzzled astronomers, as it lasted much longer than astronomers would have expected.
Solutions to Einstein’s famous equations back in the 20th century describe ‘wormholes,’ or tunnels through space-time.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via GettyImages
An astrophysicist explains what wormholes are and how these theoretical space-time tunnels have popped up in the solutions to a set of decadesold equations.
Astronomers have discovered the first dormant black hole outside of the Milky Way. These black holes are not absorbing matter from a nearby star, making them incredibly hard to find.
This cluster of galaxies, called Stephan’s Quintet, is a composite image produced from two cameras aboard the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA/STScI
NASA released five new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, revealing incredible details of ancient galaxies, stars and the presence of water in the atmosphere of a distant planet.
The Milky Way above a single MeerKAT antenna in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Inset: EHT image of the Milky Way black hole.
SARAO, EHT
Sagittarius A* is a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Now that astronomers have imaged it, they can begin to learn more about black holes within other galaxies across the universe.
The astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s lays out plans to search for life on distant planets, understand the formation of galaxies and solve deep mysteries of physics.
Concept of a black hole acting as a lens on background light.
Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock
It’s long been a mystery how black holes form, now astronomers are on the verge of cracking it.
Some stars travel at high speeds through the universe and sometimes leave spectacular clouds of dust and gas in their wake.
NASA, ESA and R. Sahai (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Hypervelocity stars were discovered only 15 years ago and are the closest things in existence to real shooting stars. They travel at millions of miles per hour, so fast that they can escape from galaxies.
ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)
Despite the name, some black holes effectively “shine” as they suck up nearby material with such force that it begins to glow. New research reveals a new method for detecting these active black holes.
New technologies have enabled us to learn more about black holes.
(NASA)
Astronomers have taken a close-up look at the jets of plasma streaking away from a supermassive black hole - one of the strangest and most energetic features of galaxies.
Gravitational waves reveal the demise of super-dense neutron stars spiralling into their black hole companions - the first time such strange and exotic star systems have ever been observed.
A black hole imaged in polarised light, revealing its magnetic fields.
EHT Collaboration