Black holes

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Supermassive black hole imaged for first time

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First image of black hole captured

Not all galaxies are neatly shaped, as this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 6240 clearly demonstrates. Hubble previously released an image of this galaxy back in 2008, but the knotted region, shown here in a pinky-red hue at the centre of the galaxies, was only revealed in these observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. NGC 6240 lies 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Holder). This galaxy has an elongated shape with branching wisps, loops and tails. This mess of gas, dust and stars bears more than a passing resemblance to a butterfly and, though perhaps less conventionally beautiful, a lobster. This bizarrely-shaped galaxy did not begin its life looking like this; its distorted appearance is a result of a galactic merger that occurred when two galaxies drifted too close to one another. This merger sparked bursts of new star formation and triggered many hot young stars to explode as supernovae. A new supernova was discovered in this galaxy in 2013, named SN 2013dc. It is not visible in this image, but its location is indicated here. At the centre of NGC 6240 an even more interesting phenomenon is taking place. When the two galaxies came together, their central black holes did so too. There are two supermassive black holes within this jumble, spiralling closer and closer to one another. They are currently only some 3000 light-years apart, incredibly close given that the galaxy itself spans 300 000 light-years. This proximity secures their fate as they are now too close to escape each other and will soon form a single immense black hole. Links Images of Hubble

Secrets of galactic butterfly revealed

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New Horizons and event horizons

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Einstein’s monsters: understanding black holes

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The basics of black holes explained

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Galaxy cluster hidden by black hole brightness

A blazar fires neutrinos and gamma rays billions of lightyears across the Universe until they hit Earth Credit: IceCube/NASA

Rare neutrinos seen coming from a black hole

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Black hole seen destroying star for the first time

No light can escape a black hole, but it can be bent around it, which means a black hole's "shadow" is wreathed in bright light. Credit: M. Moscibrodzka, T. Bronzwaer and H. Falcke, Radboud University

How do you tell one black hole from another?

Artist’s impression of a galaxy forming stars within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at its core. Results from ESO’s Very Large Telescope are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution.

Fastest growing black hole ever discovered

An artists's depiction of an ultramassive black hole.
Credit: NASA

Astronomers discover ultramassive black holes

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Black holes devour one star a year

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New stars can form in black hole winds