News tagged with hole masses

Repulsive gravity as an alternative to dark energy (Part 2: In the quantum vacuum)

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the past few years, CERN physicist Dragan Hajdukovic has been investigating what he thinks may be a widely overlooked part of the cosmos: the quantum vacuum. He suggests that the quantum vacuum has ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (72) | comments 143 | with audio podcast report

Black hole jets

(PhysOrg.com) -- Black holes are irresistible sinks for matter and energy. They are so dense that not even light can escape from their gravitational clutches. Massive black holes (equal to millions or even ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

NASA satellite could reveal if primordial black holes are dark matter

(PhysOrg.com) -- The primary objective of NASA’s Kepler satellite, which was launched in March 2009 to orbit the Sun, is to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. But now ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 09, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (18) | comments 46 | 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

A black hole unmasked

Black holes are among the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity. A black hole is thought to be point-like in dimension, but it is surrounded by an imaginary surface, or "edge," ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 29, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (19) | comments 27 | with audio podcast

Is M85 missing a black hole?

The conventional wisdom of galaxies is that they should have a central massive black hole (CMBH). The presence of such objects has been confirmed in our own galaxy as well as numerous other galaxies, including ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 17, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 5

Making massive stars

How do massive stars form? Stars with more than about eight times as much mass as the sun are arguably the most important actors in the universe. Although they live only hundreds of millions of years, they ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 29, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | 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

Measuring galaxy black hole masses

(PhysOrg.com) -- Black holes, one of the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity, are irresistible sinks for matter and energy. They are so dense that not even light can escape ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 27, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 5

Pushing black-hole mergers to the extreme: RIT scientists achieve 100:1 mass ratio

Scientists have simulated, for the first time, the merger of two black holes of vastly different sizes, with one mass 100 times larger than the other. This extreme mass ratio of 100:1 breaks a barrier in the ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 18, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Extreme X-ray source supports new class of black hole

A group of international astronomers in the UK, France and the USA, led by the University of Leicester, have found proof to confirm the distance and brightness of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 08, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (12) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Studying how black holes grow

Black holes are some of the most exotic objects in the universe. They are the final evolutionary stage of giant stars much larger than the sun. When these stars explode, their cores collapse down to the size ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Suzaku catches retreat of a black hole's disk

(PhysOrg.com) -- Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (18) | comments 2

First black holes may have incubated in giant, starlike cocoons

(PhysOrg.com) -- The first large black holes in the universe likely formed and grew deep inside gigantic, starlike cocoons that smothered their powerful x-ray radiation and prevented surrounding gases from ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 24, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (20) | comments 22

Swift, XMM-Newton satellites tune into a middleweight black hole

(PhysOrg.com) -- While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1