Black Holes

The Violent Variations of Black Holes

Smallest Black Hole
Milky Way's Black Hole Gave Off a Burst 300 Years Ago

Starburst Galaxies Found with Active Quasars
Is This Black Hole Available in Size Medium?
New "Sunglasses" Help Astronomers See Light Near Black Holes
When Black Holes Explode: Measuring the Emission from the Fifth Dimension

Stars Orbiting Close to Black Holes Flattened like Hot Pancakes

Playing with black holes is a risky business, especially for a star that is unlucky enough to be orbiting one. Assuming an unfortunate star hasn't already had all of its hydrogen fuel and other component elements stripped from its surface, the powerful tidal forces will have some fun with the doomed stellar body. First the star will be stretched out of shape and then it will be flattened like a pancake. This action will compress the star generating violent internal nuclear explosions, and shockwaves will ripple throughout the tormented stellar plasma. This gives rise to a new type of X-ray burst, revealing the sheer power a black hole's tidal radius has on the smaller binary sibling. Sounds painful…
Three Black Holes

The consequences of two black holes colliding may be huge, the energy produced by such a collision could even be detected by observatories here on Earth. Ripples in space-time will wash over the Universe as gravitational waves and are predicted to be detected as they pass through the Solar System. Taking this idea one step further, what would happen if three black holes collide? Sound like science fiction? Well it's not, and there is observational evidence that three black holes can cluster together, possibly colliding after some highly complex orbits that can only be calculated by the most powerful computers available to researchers…

Super-massive and Small Black Holes

Astronomers studying black holes are able to "see" them due to the fact that the gas getting sucked in gets extremely hot and emits X-rays. These X-ray pulses are commonly seen among smaller black holes, but until now, had not been detected from super-massive black holes. But astronomers using the XMM Newton X-ray satellite have discovered a strong X-ray pulse emitting from a giant black hole in a galaxy 500 million light years from Earth, created by gas being sucked in by gravity. "Scientists have been looking for such behaviour for the past 20 years and our discovery helps us begin to understand more about the activity around such black holes as they grow," said Dr. Marek Gierlinski from Durham University. Gierlinski and his colleagues say this finding is the "missing link" between small and super-massive black holes.

Star Formation Extinguished

According to new research, a galaxy with a quasar in the middle is not a good place to grow up. As active galactic nuclei (AGN) evolve, they pass through a "quasar phase", where the accretion disk surrounding the central black hole blasts intense radiation into space. The quasar far outshines the entire host galaxy. After the quasar phase, when the party is over, it is as if there is no energy left and star formation stops.