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Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe of the Cosmos
One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.
In Violation of Einstein, Black Holes Might Have ‘Hair’
A new study shows that extreme black holes could break the famous “no-hair” theorem, and in a way that we could detect.
‘Unicorn’ Discovery Points to a New Population of Black Holes
Small black holes were nowhere to be found, leading astronomers to wonder if they didn’t exist at all. Now a series of findings, including a “unicorn” black hole, has raised hopes of solving the decade-long mystery.
Secret Ingredient Found to Power Supernovas
Three-dimensional supernova simulations have solved the mystery of why they explode at all.
Galaxy-Size Bubbles Discovered Towering Over the Milky Way
For decades, astronomers debated whether a particular smudge was close-by and small, or distant and huge. A new X-ray map supports the massive option.
Astronomers Get Their Wish, and a Cosmic Crisis Gets Worse
We don’t know why the universe appears to be expanding faster than it should. New ultra-precise distance measurements have only intensified the problem.
The New History of the Milky Way
Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the story of our galaxy.
Physicists Pin Down Nuclear Reaction From Moments After the Big Bang
The newly-measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process from the Big Bang matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.
The Cosmologist Who Dreams in the Universe’s Dark Threads
Cora Dvorkin discovered new possibilities for what dark matter could be. Now she’s devising unorthodox ways to identify it.