News tagged with black light

Do black holes help stars form?

(PhysOrg.com) -- The center of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Physicists find that an ultrahigh-energy proton looks like a black disk

(PhysOrg.com) -- What does a proton look like? The common answer to this question is that protons are much too small to scatter light, and since light is necessary for us to see things, protons do not “look” ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 08, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (24) | comments 43 | with audio podcast feature

Astronomers discover biggest black holes ever (Update)

University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 05, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (24) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Close encounters of the galactic kind

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have used a large survey to test a prediction that close encounters between galaxies can trigger the rapid growth of supermassive black holes. Key to this work was Chandra's unique ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Suspects in the quenching of star formation exonerated

Supermassive black holes millions to billions times the mass of our Sun lie at the heart of most, maybe all large galaxies. Some of these power brilliantly luminous, rapidly growing objects called active galactic nuclei that ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 11, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Hubble mosaic of the Galactic center

(PhysOrg.com) -- This NASA Hubble Space Telescope infrared mosaic image represents the sharpest survey of the Galactic Center to date. It reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 4

Space telescopes reveal secrets of turbulent black hole

(PhysOrg.com) -- A fleet of spacecraft including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered unprecedented details in the surroundings of a supermassive black hole. Observations reveal huge bullets of gas ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 29, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Small distant galaxies host supermassive black holes

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using the Hubble Space Telescope to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing in surprisingly small galaxies. The findings suggest that central black ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 15, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 28 | with audio podcast

Chandra finds nearest pair of supermassive black holes

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. At a distance of 160 million light ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 31, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Exotic galaxy reveals tantalizing tale

(PhysOrg.com) -- A galaxy with a combination of characteristics never seen before is giving astronomers a tantalizing peek at processes they believe played key roles in the growth of galaxies and clusters ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

The central region of the Milky Way

(PhysOrg.com) -- The center of our Milky Way galaxy is about 27,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius. At the very center of the galaxy lies a black hole whose mass is about ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 15, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (21) | comments 19 | with audio podcast

Russian space telescope unfurls giant antenna

A giant new Russian space telescope on Saturday unfurled its dish-like antenna which will observe radio waves from galaxies and black holes billions of light years away. ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 2

Astrophysicists use X-ray fingerprints to study eating habits of giant black holes

By studying the X-rays emitted when superheated gases plunge into distant and massive black holes, astrophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have provided an important test of a long-standing ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 06, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Integral spots matter a millisecond from doom

ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory has spotted extremely hot matter just a millisecond before it plunges into the oblivion of a black hole. But is it really doomed? These unique observations suggest that ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 24, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Message in a wobble: Black holes send memos in light

Imagine a spinning black hole so colossal and so powerful that it kicks photons, the basic units of light, and sends them careening thousands of light years through space. Some of the photons make it to Earth. ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 14, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 6 | with audio podcast