supermassive black holes

Artwork depicting a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk and magnetic corona, with powerful jets launching away in opposite directions. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
How do supermassive black holes launch powerful jets of matter? With hot gas and magnetism.
Phil Plait
Trending on SYFY WIRE in supermassive black holes
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Astronomers get a front row seat to a star getting torn apart by a huge black hole
Phil Plait
Artwork depicting a tidal disruption event, when a star is torn apart by a black hole. A stream of matter is puller off, forming a disk around the black hole and creating an outflow of high-speed material. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
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If you want to disprove Einstein, it just got 500 times harder
Phil Plait
A simulation of the light emitted by material as it swirls around the black hole M87*. Red is long-wavelength radio waves, blue is millimeter-range waves (what the Event Horizon Telescopes sees), and green is near-infrared light.
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The ring of material around M87’s supermassive black hole is changing with time
Phil Plait
The very first image of the "shadow" of a supermassive black hole. This shows the region around a black hole with a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun, located 55 million light years away from Earth in the core of the galaxy M87. Credit: NSF
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The ghost of an angry black hole still haunts this galaxy
Phil Plait
Sep 3, 2020
Radio image of the galaxy PGC 064440 shows it had jets of matter streaming away from it (long lines) in the past. Eventually the jets stopped, and the material is flowing back to the galaxy, but then gets pushed away to form the shorter arms of the X.
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The fastest star in the galaxy has been found, and yeah, it’s really *really* fast
Phil Plait
Aug 17, 2020
A simulation showing the positions and orbits of stars orbiting the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org
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When the supermassive black hole's away, the stars will play
Phil Plait
Aug 10, 2020
An optical (Hubble) and X-ray (Chandra, blue) image of the galaxy cluster SpARC 1049 shows the galaxies in the cluster center. Stars are forming at a furious rate right in the center of this image. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/Univ. of Montreal/J. Hlavacek-Lar
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Because the Universe isn't weird enough: Black hole planets may exist.
Phil Plait
Aug 4, 2020
Artwork depicting “blanets”: planets that have formed around a supermassive black hole. Credit: Kagoshima University
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A record-breaking quasar poses a supermassive problem
Phil Plait
Jul 6, 2020
artwork of a black hole accretion disk
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Pulsars, black holes, spacetime, and the search for the center of the solar system
Phil Plait
Jul 3, 2020
Artwork depicting gravitational waves distorting space, changing the way neutron star pulses arrive at Earth. Credit: David Champion
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In the distant Universe a supermassive black hole eats a sun *a day*
Phil Plait
Jul 1, 2020
Artist drawing of a blazar, a galaxy with a supermassive black hole spewing out energy. Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab
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Merging black holes blast out light… but not for the reason you'd think
Phil Plait
Jun 29, 2020
A binary pair of black holes about to merge together, near the huge disk of material swirling around a supermassive black hole in a distant active galaxy. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
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A binary quasar caught by accident!
Phil Plait
Jun 17, 2020
Artwork depicting binary quasars, two actively galaxies orbiting one another. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble/ESO/M. Kornmesser, adapted by Phil Plait
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Quarter-million-light-year long threads in an active galaxy have astronomers… engaged
Phil Plait
Jun 10, 2020
The active galaxy ESO 137-006 is sending out two beams of matter that puff up at the ends and emit radio waves. They appear to be connected by several narrow threads of gas, the origin of which is unclear. The galaxy itself is the dot in the center. Credi
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Why are black holes surrounded by a haze of eerie clouds, and do they eat them?
Elizabeth Rayne
May 22, 2020
clouds around supermassive black hole
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A huge black hole eats a huger black hole's dinner then explodes with the light of a trillion suns
Phil Plait
May 11, 2020
Artwork (not to scale) depicting the binary black hole in the heart of the blazar OJ 287. The less massive black hole plunges through the accretion disk around the more massive black hole, creating a huge bubble of superheated gas. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec
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