black holes

This is not an actual image of a black hole. This artist’s impression shows the surroundings of a supermassive black hole, typical of that found at the heart of many galaxies. The black hole itself is surrounded by a brilliant accretion disc of very hot, infalling material and, further out, a dusty torus. There are also often high-speed jets of material ejected at the black hole’s poles that can extend huge distances into space. Illustration and caption by European Southern Observatory

WATCH: What does a black hole look like? Scientists reveal the first picture

By Nsikan Akpan

Artist's conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO. The black holes are spinning in a non-aligned fashion, which means they have different orientations relative to the overall orbital motion of the pair. LIGO found hints that at least one black hole in the system called GW170104 was non-aligned with its orbital motion before it merged with its partner. Image by LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)

‘Dancing’ black holes yield stellar object as massive as 49 suns

Astronomers announced they have detected another gravitational wave tearing through spacetime, changing of our understanding of black holes and other stellar phenomena.

By Andrew Wagner

Listening in on the ‘Black Hole Blues,’ the soundtrack of the universe

February saw one of the most important astronomical breakthroughs of the decade, as a team of scientists “heard” gravitational waves -- a key postulate of Einstein’s theory of relativity -- for the first time in human history. Now, astrophysicist Janna…

By PBS NewsHour

What’s the sound of two black holes colliding? Proof that Einstein was right

Gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime -- aren’t just an Einstein theory any more. A team of international scientists announced Thursday that they confirmed the waves’ existence after recording feedback from a black hole collision a billion…

By PBS NewsHour

What’s making this galaxy shine with the light of 300 trillion suns?

In a galaxy far, far away -- specifically 12.5 billion years from Earth -- shines the light of over 300 trillion suns.

By Colleen Shalby

How a global network of telescopes may give us first glimpse of a black hole

By PBS NewsHour

Even though black holes are vital to our understanding of the universe, no one has ever seen one -- yet. To change this, a team of scientists in northern Chile, is using a network of telescopes around the globe to…

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How seeing a black hole’s shadow will tell us if Einstein was right

By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy

Black holes are some of the most exotic objects in our universe. But how do you see something that, by definition, you can't see? The answer will take a telescope the size of the Earth.

This telescope is so extreme, the weak of heart need not apply

By Joshua Barajas and Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy

Deadly altitudes, breathtaking skies, treacherous roads, wild donkeys -- it's all part of working on the most sophisticated telescope in the world.

Star cluster flung from distant galaxy at 2 million mph

By Joshua Barajas

Astronomers have discovered a cluster of several thousand stars that was ejected out of a distant galaxy at a stellar speed of more than two million miles per hour. The group of “runaway stars,” named HVGC-1 for “hypervelocity globular cluster,”…

What Hawking meant when he said ‘there are no black holes’

By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy

Last week, Stephen Hawking declared "there are no black holes." What exactly that means has physicists scratching their heads. The problem is 40 years of paradoxes as scientists try to understand how black holes seem to break two rules of…