Two astronomers recently went looking for a monster black hole. They sifted reams of data from the most powerful telescopes on and above Earth for any sign of an invisible object hundreds of times the mass of the sun in a distant cloud of stars known as NGC 6397.
Instead, they found a nest of baby monsters, as many as five dozen: dark engines of annihilation, packed into a space barely larger than our own solar system, buzzing back and forth and throwing their considerable weight around in the dense core of the star cluster.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Star's Destruction by Supermassive Black Hole Linked to Origin of Universe's Highest-Energy
A team of scientists has detected the presence of a high-energy neutrino—a particularly elusive particle—in the wake of a star’s destruction as it is consumed by a black hole. This discovery, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy , sheds new light on the origins of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays—the highest energy particles in the Universe.
A view of the accretion disc around the supermassive black hole, with jet-like structures flowing away from the disc. The extreme mass of the black hole bends spacetime, allowing the far side of the accretion disc to be seen as an image above and below the black hole. Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab
Nearby black hole Cyg X-1 more massive than thought | Space | EarthSky
New research suggests that the famous black hole Cygnus X-1 – first black hole ever detected and one of the closest to Earth – is farther away and much more massive than previously believed.
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A new study suggests that one of the closest black holes to Earth, and the first ever detected, is both farther away and more massive than we thought.
The study – published February 18, 2021 in the peer-reviewed journal Science – says that Cygnus X-1 is about 7,200 light-years from Earth, 20% farther away than astronomers had previously believed. Before the study’s new measurements, the black hole was believed to be about 6,100 light-years away and 15 times the mass of the sun. With an increase in distance, Cygnus X-1 is now believed to be 50% larger than previous estimates.
Picking up signal from faraway galaxy, Israelis challenge black hole assumptions | The Times of
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25,000 supermassive black holes visible in map of northern sky
The image above may look like a fairly normal picture of the night sky, but what you're looking at is a lot more special than just glittering stars. Each of those 25,000 white dots is an active supermassive black hole.
And each of those black holes is devouring material at the heart of a galaxy millions of light-years away — that's how they could be pinpointed at all.
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When they're just hanging out not doing much, black holes don't give off any detectable radiation, making them hard to find. When a black hole is actively accreting material — spooling it in from a disc of dust and gas that circles it much as water circles a drain — the intense forces involved generate radiation across multiple wavelengths that we can detect across the vastness of space.
"Heaviest Black Hole Collision" Detected by Gravitational Waves Might Actually Be a Boson Star
Artistic representation of a collision of two boson stars, together with the gravitational waves emitted. Credit: Nicolás Sanchis-Gual and Rocío García-Souto
An international team of scientists led by the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics and the University of Aveiro, including an undergraduate from the Department of Physics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has proposed the collision of two exotic compact objects known as boson stars as an alternative explanation for the origin of the gravitational wave signal GW190521.
Hunting for a giant black hole, astronomers find a nest of darkness, 'something that makes us
Two astronomers recently went looking for a monster black hole. They sifted reams of data from the most powerful telescopes on and above Earth for any sign of an invisible object hundreds of times the mass of the sun in a distant cloud of stars known as NGC 6397.
Instead, they found a nest of baby monsters, as many as five dozen: dark engines of annihilation, packed into a space barely larger than our own solar system, buzzing back and forth and throwing their considerable weight around in the dense core of the star cluster.
Check out the most extensive map of black holes ever | Popular Science
Happening on Twitter
Camvert's illegal clear-cutting of ancestral lands to make way for giant palm oil plantations isn't only a violatio… https://t.co/ufx7mLtoLD Greenpeaceafric (from Africa) Mon Mar 01 13:00:23 +0000 2021
Hunting for a giant black hole, astronomers found a nest of darkness | via @nytimes https://t.co/UTYkPSTLJx japantimes (from Tokyo) Sat Feb 27 05:15:01 +0000 2021
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