The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) keeps finding supermassive black holes (SMBH) in the early Universe. They’re in active galactic nuclei seen only 500,000 years after the Big Bang. This was long before astronomers thought they could…
Radiation from dark matter in the early universe may have kept hydrogen gas hot enough to condense into black holes. Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not…
Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not that long after the Big Bang -- before they should have had time to form. Astrophysicists have discovered that if…
It takes a long time for supermassive black holes, like the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, to form. Typically, the birth of a black hole requires a giant star with the mass of at least 50 of our suns to burn out—a process that…
UGC 3478, featured in this Hubble Space Telescope image, is a Seyfert galaxy characterized by its bright active galactic nucleus containing a supermassive black hole. Located relatively close at 128 million light-years, its emitted X-rays…
Researchers have observed a supermassive black hole savoring its last meal as only pieces of the object are being torn off every year it passes by. Continue reading at TweakTown >
A team of astronomers has observed a star in a distant galaxy repeatedly interacting with a supermassive black hole. Initially thought to be destroyed in 2018, the star survived and has since made periodic close passes, leading to…
Supermassive black holes that shred and devour stars throw them up like a "bad curry" and cover themselves in the wreckage, sick new simulations reveal.
Stars that wander too close to supermassive black holes may be violently undone in a process called "spaghettification." New simulations provide the most detailed look ever at the gory interaction.
The "deaths" of galaxies are caused by their central supermassive black holes, and the "smoking gun" evidence of this connection takes an unexpected form.