Delve into the wonders of the cosmos with our expert-led exploration of astronomy. Discover the secrets of black holes, explore exoplanets and nebulas, and learn about the latest advancements in space exploration using the James Webb Space Telescope.
Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery, observing two active black holes merging at their farthest distance ever, just 900 million years after the Big Bang. This marks the first time two luminous supermassive black holes have been spotted during cosmic dawn, the early period of the universe. The discovery, made using the Subaru Telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam, provides valuable insights into the evolution of the universe and the formation of supermassive black holes.
Black holes, long thought to be enigmatic objects with infinitely dense centers and inescapable gravitational pull, may have a different explanation: gravastars. Gravastars are hypothetical celestial entities made of vacuum energy, devoid of singularities and resembling stars. Researchers have found striking similarities between gravastars and black holes, suggesting they could be viable alternatives. Further experiments and observations are needed to validate this theory and distinguish between gravastars and singular black holes.
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a ‘plunging region’ around black holes, where matter falls straight into the black hole’s center. This discovery, made using NASA’s NuSTAR and NICER space telescopes, provides new insights into the extreme conditions around black holes and the nature of space-time.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have discovered the most distant pair of colliding black holes in the known universe. Located more than 13 billion light-years away, the merging pair have baffled scientists, as their rapid growth challenges current theories of black hole evolution.
