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Black holes

The coalescence and merger of a black hole from the bottom of the mass gap (surface in dark gray) with a neutron star with colors ranging from dark blue (60 g/cm600) to white (XNUMX kg/cmXNUMX) emphasize the strong deformations of the low-density material of the neutron star Credit: I. Markin (Potsdam University), T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)

Gravitational waves reveal hidden interactions in space

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The analysis of the signal GW230529 picked up by LIGO shows that it originated from the merger of two compact objects, one with a mass between 1.2 and 2.0 times that of the Sun and the other with a mass slightly more than twice the first
The mysterious life of hot compact objects in space. Credit: The Science website via DALEE. The image should not be seen as a scientific image

Cosmic Mysteries Revealed: The Short and Brilliant Lives of Compressed Compact Objects

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A new study reveals details of an unknown class of galaxies called compact compact objects (CSOs) that emit jets moving in opposite directions at speeds close to the speed of light
Artificial intelligence reveals a long-standing mistake in the study of black holes. Credit: The Science website via DALEE

Artificial intelligence reveals a long-standing mistake in the study of black holes

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A new study, led by the UK's University of Bath, has found that supermassive black holes need both merging galaxies and cold gas to grow. This discovery, obtained through machine learning, may change our understanding of galaxy evolution
Artist's rendering of the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes: Using archival data from the Gemini North Telescope, a team of astronomers has measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found. The merger of two supermassive black holes is a long-predicted but never-observed phenomenon. This pair provides insight into why such an event seems so unlikely in the universe. Credit: NOIR LAB

Astronomers have measured the heaviest pair of black holes ever found

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Data from the Gemini North Telescope provide a possible explanation for the halting of the merger of a pair of supermassive black holes at the center of a galaxy
This image shows the region of the sky where the record-breaking quasar, J0529-4351, is located. Using the European Southern Observatory's Giant Telescope (VLT) in Chile, this quasar was found to be the most luminous object known in the universe so far. This image was created from images that are part of the Computerized Sky Survey 2, while the smaller image shows the location of the quasar in an image from the Dark Energy Survey. Credit: ESO/Computerized Sky Survey 2/Dark Energy Survey

The brightest object in the universe has been discovered - powered by a massive sun-swallowing black hole

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The material being pulled toward this disk-shaped black hole emits so much energy that J0529-4351 is more than 500 trillion times brighter than the Sun
The LISA mission will be the first space-based observatory dedicated to detecting ripples in the fabric of space-time. Credit: ESA

Capturing the Ripples of Space-Time: The LISA Mission to Study Gravitational Waves

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The European Space Agency gets the green light for the first space observatory of its kind, dedicated to revealing space-time vibrations.
A dramatic scene in space with a black hole in the center. Around the black hole is a chaotic and dynamic environment, with bright stars. Prepared using artificial intelligence software for illustrative purposes and should not be considered a scientific image

Cracking the code: how intermediate-mass black holes form

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Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are a cosmic enigma, their very existence and mechanisms of formation shrouded in mystery
The central region of the Milky Way galaxy as photographed by the Sobro telescope. The image shows many stars in a field of view that is about 0.4 light-years wide. The star S0-6 (in the blue circle), the subject of this study, is about 0.04 light-years from the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (in the green circle). Credit: Miyagi University of Education/NAOJ

Across Time and Space: A Mysterious Star's Epic Journey to the Center of the Milky Way

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Research by an international team led by Shogo Nishiyama at Miyagi University shows that some of the stars closely circling the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy may have come from further away than previously thought, completely outside the Milky Way.
Prof. Zvi Piren. Photo: Noam Chai

For the first time, Israeli researchers will participate in a black hole and neutron star research group

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Professor Zvi Piren, the holder of the Schwartzman Chair at the Rakah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University and Professor Amir Levinson from Tel Aviv University will take part in a research group of the prestigious Simmons Foundation as part of an international cooperation in mathematics and physical sciences for the study of neutron stars and black holes
An artist's rendering of a collection of pulsars detecting gravitational waves from pairs of orbiting supermassive black holes. Credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration

Proof that the Earth is surrounded by a sea of ​​slow gravitational waves

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"The effect of gravitational waves on pulsars is very weak and difficult to detect, but we built the credibility of the findings over time as we collected more data," said Caterina Cazziano, NANOGrav team member and senior lecturer at Caltech.
Artist's impression of GRB 211211A. Credit: Soheb Mandhai @TheAstroPhoenix

Cosmic Gold Factory: A single kilonova produced very heavy elements in the amount of a thousand times the mass of Earth

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A highly unusual burst of high-energy light from a nearby galaxy is linked by scientists to a neutron star merger
Scientists observing the compact radio core of M87 have discovered new details about the galaxy's supermassive black hole. In this artist's view, the black hole's massive jet appears to rise from the center of the black hole. The observations on which this figure is based represent the first time the jet and the black hole's shadow have been imaged together, providing scientists with new insights into how black holes can launch these powerful jets. Courtesy of ESO

For the first time a black hole was photographed together with the turbulent environment near it

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In a recent paper published in the journal Nature, scientists analyzed new data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) to produce the most detailed image yet of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87
The distribution of dark matter in a segment of the southern sky. Based on data from the ACT observatory in Chile that operated between 2007-2022. Courtesy of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania

A new map of dark matter verifies Einstein's theory of general relativity

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A groundbreaking new map of dark matter has been created using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), in an international collaboration of astronomers and physicists. The map shows the distribution of dark matter in the southern sky region, and is the most accurate and detailed map of its kind ever created
The black holes discovered by the Gaia spacecraft. Figure: European Space Agency

The closest black hole to the solar system

An international team, which includes a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University, has identified the first black hole, Gaia BH1, which is 1500 light years from Earth
Gravitational waves are created by a pair of stars turning into black holes. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Gravitational waves light up the universe

Gravitational wave analysis hints at the way black hole pairs are formed
An artist's impression of two black holes about to collide and merge Image: depositphotos.com

Astrophysicists predict the strength of gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes

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A team of researchers from Australia recently made a new prediction about the strength of this gravitational wave signal. The new estimate is based on data from the MassiveBlack-II imager, which simulates a massive region of space that resembles a slice of our universe
This is the first image of Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. This is the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. Until now, it has been recognized for its influence on the stars close to it. The black hole was imaged using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array that joined together eight existing radio observatories around Earth to create one virtual "Earth-sized" telescope. The telescope is named after the event horizon, a nickname for the boundary of the black hole beyond which no light can escape. It took five years to process the image. Credit: EHT Partnership

Improving the ability to observe the black hole at the center of the galaxy will make it possible to test Einstein's theory of general relativity

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Says Dr. Shahar Hadar, a theoretical astrophysicist from the University of Haifa and Oranim College who also works in the development of the next generation of the Event Horizon Telescope. He also explains why it took five years to produce the photo published this week and what is planned to be done in order to improve the resolution
This is the first photograph of Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. This is the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. Until now, it has been recognized for its influence on the stars close to it. The black hole was imaged using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array that joined together eight existing radio observatories around Earth to create one virtual "Earth-sized" telescope. The telescope is named after the event horizon, a nickname for the boundary of the black hole beyond which no light can escape. Credit: EHT Partnership

Astronomers reveal for the first time a "radio image" of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way

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First image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius Ai Kochav) which until now has been studied for its effect on other stars, this time we can see its event horizon. Photographed by the Ofek Al-Havain partnership which connected eight radio observatories into one radio telescope the size of the Earth
A simulation of a star system that was supposed to include the black hole closest to us, but in the end it was clarified that there is no black hole. Photo: ESO

A system in which the "closest black hole" is allegedly found does not include a black hole

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In 2020, a team led by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reported the closest black hole to Earth, which is only 1000 light years away. But other researchers have disputed their results. After further observations from the ground and from space, both the original researchers and their critics came to the conclusion that there is no black hole
Matter and even entire stars fall into a black hole. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Astronomers think they've spotted an 'invisible' black hole for the first time

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Holes were able to detect a black hole that matter does not fall into or is not part of a binary system, thus it is not exposed to the eye and to almost any other instrument * Some telescopes that are under construction or ready to be used will be able to detect such individual black holes on a daily basis
It is a complex picture of X-rays, molecular gas and hot ionized gas near the center of the galaxy. The orange shapes are glowing hydrogen gas. One of these shapes, at the upper end of the jet (see an illuminated image below) is interpreted as a hydrogen cloud that was hit by the jet and moved outward. The jet disperses the cloud into tendrils that move towards the north. Further down near the black hole are X-ray observations of highly heated gas in blue and molecular gas in green. These data are evidence that the black hole is occasionally accreted by stars or gas clouds, and is ejecting some of the very hot material along its axis of rotation. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Gerald Cecil (UNC-Chapel Hill); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

The Milky Way's supermassive black hole is still humming long after a burst of powerful 'death rays'

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The Hubble Space Telescope photographed a bright knot of gas hit by an invisible jet from the black hole, which is only 15 light years away. The black hole must have looked bright billions of years ago as a quasar, when our young galaxy was fed by lots of infalling gas. But after all this time the black hole is acting sporadically, unwilling to take a nap
A black hole swallows its companion star. Illustration: shutterstock

Two gravitational wave events within 10 days: black holes have been discovered that eat neutron stars - "like Pac-Man"

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The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the Virago Gravitational Wave Observatory in Italy captured the gravitational waves from the death spiral and merger of a neutron star with a black hole, not once but twice. The findings were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
A black hole with a warped disk. Credit: John Paice

A strange black hole with a massive distortion in its accretion disk has been discovered

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An international team of astrophysicists from South Africa, the UK, France and the US have found a large variation in the brightness of light seen around one of the closest black holes in our galaxy, 9,600 light-years from Earth, and they conclude that it is caused by a massive distortion in its accretion disk
A jet emitted from a black hole at the center of a galaxy. Illustration: shutterstock

Why supermassive black holes keep growing at the centers of massive galaxies

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Researchers from the Hebrew University and France discovered that below the critical size there are factors that prevent black holes from swallowing gas and growing, in galaxies with a mass of more than ten million suns, the attraction is large enough to pull more and more material from the galaxy to the black hole at its center
Colliding neutron stars can create solar-mass black holes. Credit: Robin Dinell / Carnegie Institution for Science

What is the connection between stellar black holes and dark matter?

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When LIGO and Virgo observe more black star collisions, they may observe many small black stars. If that happens, we may have to examine this idea of ​​darker matter more carefully
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