Sagittarius A* lies in the southern sky, passing directly above South Africa.
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Articles on Black holes
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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.
We finally know that Sagittarius A* really exists.
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.
Some black holes are isolated in space and therefore near impossible to detect.
You can imagine a white hole as being a black hole in reverse — but is such a thing really possible?
It’s long been a mystery how black holes form, now astronomers are on the verge of cracking it.
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.
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.
Advanced technologies and the information they collect have revealed how black holes form and behave.
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.
New research can help explain how black holes can produce powerful jets.
The black hole is part of a binary star system within our Milky Way galaxy. It orbits a colossal supergiant companion star.
A small add-on to existing gravitational wave detectors could reveal what happens to matter as it becomes a black hole, a process like the big bang in reverse.
Some of the baby radio galaxies found may not be ‘babies’ at all. Rather, they may be ‘angsty teens’, rapidly growing into adults much faster than researchers had anticipated.
Calculations show that wormholes should create a spectacular display of gamma rays that we could try to observe.
Not all planets orbit stars. Rogues float through the galaxy in darkness and are almost impossible to see.
The scariest beast in the universe has an insatiable appetite and shreds its victims.
Roger Penrose helped resurrect Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez showed there was a black hole in the middle of our galaxy.
Top contributors
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia
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Professor, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer in Physics, University of Hull
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Professor of Astronomy, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor, Curtin University
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Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, Monash University
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Associate professor, The University of Western Australia
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
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Alan Duffy is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor and Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
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Associate Professor, Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria
