Most newborn black holes spew gas so hard they almost stop spinning
12 February 2024
When black holes are born from collapsing stars, they emit a short-lived jet that may slow down the black hole’s rotation to nearly a standstill
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Premium
Detailed image of supermassive black hole shows its powerful jet
26 April 2023
An image of a black hole called M87* shows never-before-seen details of matter falling into its centre and a jet shooting out of it, which has given astronomers a better understanding of the dynamics around this behemoth
Lunar craters could reveal past collisions with ancient black holes
29 September 2021
Black holes born in the big bang could be the dark matter physicists have sought for decades – if they exist. Now there's an audacious plan to find the scars they would have left as they punched through the moon
The black hole paradox that thwarts our understanding of reality
22 September 2021
Black holes devour stuff and then shrivel away over billions of years. Explaining what happens to anything that falls in explodes our current theories of physics, says cosmologist Paul Davies
Black holes leak energy when they eat plasma near the event horizon
8 January 2021
When magnetic fields around a black hole reconnect, they can slow down plasma particles near the event horizon, which cause the black hole to lose energy when it swallows them
Carlo Rovelli: Where does the stuff that falls into a black hole go?
28 October 2020
What happens to matter in a black hole? The question has spawned many paradoxes, and in an extract from his latest book, physics superstar Carlo Rovelli proposes an answer
Black holes are hiding movies of the universe in their glowing rings
29 July 2020
A faint fuzzy glow around the first black hole image last year baffled astronomers. Now we know what it contains – and it’s more bizarre than we ever imagined
Why it's better to fall into a big black hole, and other bizarre facts
28 May 2020
Black holes exert a powerful pull on our imagination, but their weirdness starts way before you cross the event horizon, says astrophysicist Chris Impey
Born in the big bang: How ancient black holes could save cosmology
9 October 2019
Exotic primordial black holes born in the moments after the universe began could be the key to solving some of cosmology’s biggest problems… if only we can find them.
LIGO may have just spotted a black hole devouring a neutron star
30 April 2019
In a cosmic clash of the titans, we may have just spotted a black hole eat a neutron star - the first collision seen between a mixed pair of these massive objects
