4+ day, 3+ hour ago   (556+ words) A brilliant X-ray source is not automatically a black hole. Matter falling toward a neutron star can also become intensely luminous, and some neutron stars have surprised astronomers by producing far more radiation than expected. Identifying the object requires evidence…...

6+ day, 8+ hour ago   (624+ words) A neutron star is what remains after the core of a massive star collapses. It is not a small ordinary star. It is the crushed core of a dead one, compressed until protons and electrons are forced together and most…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (373+ words) Researchers have completed one of the largest computer simulations of cosmic history yet assembled. Called ASTRID, it follows the growth of galaxies and black holes from the universe’s early days to the present, giving astronomers a virtual laboratory for testing…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (447+ words) Two stars once considered promising Dyson sphere candidates have now been removed from the list. Follow-up observations with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope showed that the infrared glow did not come from enormous artificial structures around the stars. It came…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (821+ words) A quasar is a distant galaxy with a brilliant active centre. Here is how a feeding supermassive black hole can outshine every star around it. What is a quasar? The short answer is a distant galaxy with an extraordinarily bright…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago   (758+ words) Black holes are invisible until something gives them away. A disk of hot gas can light up around one. A jet can cross a galaxy. And, in the most violent cases, a black hole can tear apart a star and…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago   (546+ words) The James Webb Space Telescope has found the clearest example yet of an object that looks like a star but is powered by a black hole. Before your next upload Clean image metadata before you share. Remove EXIF, GPS and…...