Black holes snacking on small stars create particle accelerators that bombard Earth with cosmic rays

Using 16 years of data from NASA’s gamma-ray detecting Fermi spacecraft, astronomers have discovered that “microquasars,” systems in which a black hole is slowly devouring a star, may be small, but they pack one heck of a punch. Despite their diminutive nature, this research suggests even microquasars snacking on small stars can have an impressive cosmic influence, becoming powerful natural particle accelerators. This means black holes indulging in stellar meals of all sizes could be responsible for a higher-than-suspected amount of high-energy charged particles called “cosmic rays,” which are constantly…

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Astronomers find hundreds of ‘hidden’ black holes — and there may be billions or even trillions more

Astronomers have discovered hundreds of hidden supermassive black holes lurking in the universe — and there may be billions or even trillions more out there that we still haven’t found. The researchers identified these giant black holes by peering through clouds of dust and gas in infrared light. The finds could help astronomers refine their theories of how galaxies evolve, the researchers say. Hunting for black holes is difficult work. They are the darkest objects in the universe, as not even light can escape their gravitational pull. Scientists can sometimes…

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NASA X-ray telescope Chandra discovers black holes ‘blow’ on their food to cool it down

Anyone who has experienced the blistering pain associated with biting into a fresh apple pastry or taking a swig of hot coffee can attest to the importance of blowing on your food or drink before introducing it to your mouth. It turns out that black holes may perform the cosmic equivalent of this routine, “blowing” on blistering hot matter before they gobble it down. This supermassive black hole-food cooling process was discovered by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to observe some of the…

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Supermassive black holes in ‘little red dot’ galaxies are 1,000 times larger than they should be, and astronomers don’t know why

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered distant, overly massive supermassive black holes in the early universe. The black holes seem way too massive compared to the mass of the stars in the galaxies that host them. In the modern universe, for galaxies close to our own Milky Way, supermassive black holes tend to have masses equal to around 0.01% of the stellar mass of their host galaxy. Thus, for every 10,000 solar masses attributed to stars in a galaxy, there is around one solar mass of…

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Astronomers Catch Unprecedented Features at Brink of Active Black Hole

International teams of astronomers monitoring a supermassive black hole in the heart of a distant galaxy have detected features never seen before using data from NASA missions and other facilities. The features include the launch of a plasma jet moving at nearly one-third the speed of light and unusual, rapid X-ray fluctuations likely arising from near the very edge of the black hole. Radio images of 1ES 1927+654 reveal emerging structures that appear to be jets of plasma erupting from both sides of the galaxy’s central black hole following a…

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Astronaut Set to Patch NASA’s X-ray Telescope Aboard Space Station

4 min read Astronaut Set to Patch NASA’s X-ray Telescope Aboard Space Station NASA astronaut Nick Hague will install patches to the agency’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope on the International Space Station as part of a spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 16. Hague, along with astronaut Suni Williams, will also complete other tasks during the outing. NICER will be the first NASA observatory repaired on-orbit since the last servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. Hague and other astronauts, including Don Pettit, who is also currently on the…

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Small satellite constellation could reveal black holes like never before

Researchers in South Korea are developing a constellation of satellites that could reveal what goes on in the vicinity of supermassive black holes like never before. The constellation, dubbed Capella, is a brainchild of Seoul National University astronomy professor Sascha Trippe. An expert in black holes, Trippe has grown frustrated with the limitations of humanity’s existing instruments for observing black holes and concerned that unless major technological advances are made, research may soon reach a “dead end.” When the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole — the one at…

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Black hole paradox that stumped Stephen Hawking may have a solution, new paper claims

Nothing is supposed to escape a black hole’s event horizon — yet new research suggests it may secretly leak information. That leakage would appear in subtle signatures in gravitational waves, and now we know how to look for them, the study authors say. In 1976, Stephen Hawking rocked the astrophysics world with his discovery that black holes aren’t entirely black. Instead, they emit tiny amounts of radiation and, given enough time, can give off so much that they disappear entirely. But this introduced a massive problem. Information flows into black…

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NASA Finds ‘Sideways’ Black Hole Using Legacy Data, New Techniques

4 Min Read NASA Finds ‘Sideways’ Black Hole Using Legacy Data, New Techniques Image showing the structure of galaxy NGC 5084, with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory overlaid on a visible-light image of the galaxy. Chandra’s data, shown in purple, revealed four plumes of hot gas emanating from a supermassive black hole rotating “tipped over” at the galaxy’s core. Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC, A. S. Borlaff, P. Marcum et al.; Optical full image: M. Pugh, B. Diaz; Image Processing: NASA/USRA/L. Proudfit NASA researchers have discovered a perplexing case of a black hole that appears to…

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Astronomers discover 1st binary stars orbiting supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Astronomers have discovered the first binary stars orbiting a supermassive black hole. The stellar pairing in question orbits the cosmic titan at the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*. The binary stars, designated D9, were found in data collected by the Very Large Telescope (VLT), located atop Cerro Paranal, an 8,645-foot-tall (2,635-meter) mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert. By measuring their velocity, the team behind the discovery was surprised to find they were two stars, not one. The fact that these binary stars so near Sgr A* have survived the…

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