The 'special relationship' between supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their hosts — something astronomers and physicists have observed for quite a while — can now be understood as a bond that begins early in a galaxy's formation and has a say in how both the galaxy and the SMBH at its center grow over time, according to a new study.
Read moreAstronomers have discovered a collection of 12 galaxies which existed about 13.0 billion years ago. One of the 12 galaxies is a giant object, known as Himiko, which was named for a mythological queen in ancient Japan. This discovery suggests that large structures such as protoclusters already existed when the Universe was only about 800 million years old, 6% of its present age.
Read moreAn experiment shows that one of the basic units of life — nucleobases — could have originated within giant gas clouds interspersed between the stars.
Read moreUsing one cosmic mystery to probe another, astronomers have analyzed the signal from a fast radio burst, an enigmatic blast of cosmic radio waves lasting less than a millisecond, to characterize the diffuse gas in the halo of a massive galaxy.
Read moreA satellite searching space for new planets gave astronomers an unexpected glimpse at a black hole ripping a star to shreds. The milestone was reached with the help of a worldwide network of robotic telescopes.
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A new visualization of a black hole illustrates how its gravity distorts our view, warping its surroundings as if viewed in a funhouse mirror.
A new object from interstellar space has been found within the Solar System, only the second such discovery of its kind. Astronomers are turning their telescopes towards the visitor, which offers a tantalising glimpse beyond our Solar System and raises some puzzling questions. The object has been given the name 2I/Borisov by the IAU.
Read moreA new model for plasma flow within the sun provides novel explanations for sunspots, the 11-year sunspot cycle, solar magnetic reversals and other previously unexplained solar phenomena.
Read moreAstronomers observed six mild-mannered LINER galaxies suddenly and surprisingly transforming into ravenous quasars — home to the brightest of all active galactic nuclei. The team's observations could help demystify the nature of both LINERs and quasars while answering some burning questions about galactic evolution. Based on their analysis, the researchers suggest they have discovered an entirely new type of black hole activity at the centers of these six LINER galaxies.
Read moreDark matter is only known by its effect on massive astronomical bodies, but has yet to be directly observed or even identified. A theory about what dark matter might be suggests that it could be a particle called an axion and that these could be detectable with laser-based experiments that already exist. These laser experiments are gravitational-wave observatories.
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