Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 21, 2023

New 'potentially interstellar' comet will be visible to the naked eye next month before leaving our solar system forever

A newly discovered comet that's barreling toward Earth may have originated from outside our solar system — and will likely be catapulted back into interstellar space after performing an intense gravitational slingshot around the sun. Before it departs our cosmic neighborhood forever, the icy object will likely get 100 times...

Sep 13, 2022

Are black holes wormholes?

In science fiction, space explorers routinely zip through wormholes in space-time that are connected by two black holes — celestial objects so dense that not even light can escape their clutches. But are black holes really doorways into wormholes? And would these wormholes look anything like their counterparts in Star...

Sep 19, 2022

Do black holes explode?

Black holes are cosmic vacuum cleaners — massive objects so large that not even light can escape them. Most people imagine black holes do nothing but sit there and devour wandering pieces of gas or dust. But could black holes actually have more interesting interior lives? Could they, for instance,...

Oct 12, 2022

One of the most extreme black hole collisions in the universe just proved Einstein right

Researchers studying the aftermath of a gargantuan black hole collision may have confirmed a gravitational phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. According to new research published today (Oct. 12) in the journal Nature, the phenomenon — which is known as precession and is similar to the wobbling motion...

Oct 14, 2022

Astronomers baffled by black hole burping out spaghettified star years after eating it

Astronomers have spotted a black hole mysteriously spewing up chunks of a devoured star several years after consuming it. The event, which scientists have classified as AT2018hyz, began in 2018 when astronomers saw the black hole ensnare a hapless star in its strong gravitational pull before shredding it to pieces....

Nov 14, 2022

Closest black hole to Earth discovered lurking in our 'cosmic backyard'

Astronomers have discovered the nearest known black hole to Earth, and it’s twice as close as the previous record holder. The space-time singularity, named Gaia BH1, is 1,566 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus and is roughly 10 times more massive than our sun. It’s close enough to our planet...

Nov 14, 2022

Black hole discovered after ripping a star to pieces

Astronomers have discovered a black hole as it spaghettified a hapless star. The intermediate-size black hole, located 850 million light-years from Earth in the galaxy SDSS J152120.07+140410.5, snared and shredded the star after it wandered too close, sending out a powerful beam of light that astronomers used to locate it....

Nov 24, 2022

Lab-grown black hole may prove Stephen Hawking's most challenging theory right

Scientists have created a lab-grown black hole analog to test one of Stephen Hawking's most famous theories — and it behaves just how he predicted. The experiment, created by using a single-file chain of atoms to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, has added further evidence to Hawking's...

Dec 14, 2022

How gravitational waves can 'see inside' black holes

Black holes are some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe. This is partially because the equations of general relativity that we use to understand them break down when studying black holes' ultra-dense centers. However, a new paper shows how astronomers could one day overcome this challenge by using...

Dec 29, 2022

The 10 most massive black hole findings from 2022

Black holes are scary beasts — objects so massive that not even light can escape their clutches. In 2022, we learned more about these gravitational monsters than ever before — from the first direct image of the black hole heart at the center of the Milky Way to one of...

Jan 5, 2023

Could humans use black holes to time travel?

Black holes form natural time machines that allow travel to both the past and the future. But don’t expect to be heading back to visit the dinosaurs any time soon. At present, we don’t have spacecraft that could get us anywhere near a black hole. But, even leaving that small...

Jan 10, 2023

Twin black holes caught chowing down on the leftovers of a galaxy merger

Two black holes have been found munching matter side by side at the heart of two merging galaxies, suggesting that binary black holes may be more common than scientists thought. Researchers reported the finding Jan. 9 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical...

Jan 12, 2023

Hundreds of dusty black holes found hiding in plain sight

Astronomers have uncovered more than 400 previously hidden black holes feeding on stars and dust in the center of galaxies. It appears that many of the new black holes, discovered using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, remained unknown until now because they are buried beneath cocoons of dust. Supermassive black holes,...

Jan 14, 2023

Black hole 'spaghettified' a star into a doughnut shape, and astronomers captured the gory encounter

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a star being stripped and stretched into a doughnut shape as a black hole devours it. The supermassive black hole, located 300 million light-years from Earth at the core of the galaxy ESO 583-G004, snared and shredded the star after it wandered too close,...

Jan 15, 2023

Elusive 'Buchdahl stars' are black holes without event horizons. But do they really exist?

An elusive object in space has posed a riddle for scientists. It looks like a black hole. It acts like a black hole. It may even smell like a black hole. But it has one crucial difference: It has no event horizon, meaning that you can escape its gravitational clutches...