Supermassive

Hidden supermassive black hole pairs may finally have a visible signal

Hidden supermassive black hole pairs may finally have a visible signal - Date: - June 5, 2026 - Source: - University of Oxford - Summary: - Scientists have proposed a new method for finding tightly bound supermassive black hole pairs by searching for stars that flash repeatedly as their light is magnified by the black holes’ gravity. The timing and brightness of these bursts could provide a unique fingerprint of black holes slowly spiraling toward a future collision. Astronomers from the...

Wind from Milky Way's supermassive black hole is finally discovered

Wind from Milky Way's supermassive black hole is finally discovered WASHINGTON, June 5 : After five decades of trying, astronomers have finally discovered the wind emanating from the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, though it turns out it is more of a gentle breeze than a hurricane. Using data from the Chile-based ALMA telescope and NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, the researchers viewed the cosmic neighborhood around the black hole - called...

Supermassive black holes could be the universe's biggest planet nurseries

May 31, 2026 report Supermassive black holes could be the universe's biggest planet nurseries Paul Arnold Author Lisa Lock Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor Supermassive black holes are the largest known black holes in the universe, sitting at the center of most large galaxies. They are sometimes described as cosmic monsters because they feed on surrounding gas and dust when they are active, as well as destroy anything that gets too close. But their reputation could be due for a...

Record ultraviolet quasar wind reaches 30% light speed near supermassive black hole

Record ultraviolet quasar wind reaches 30% light speed near supermassive black hole Gaby Clark Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor A team led by York University researchers has discovered the fastest wind near a supermassive black hole ever found at ultraviolet wavelengths, driven by the disk of matter (quasar) surrounding the black hole. "This quasar has a black hole of 1.7 billion times the mass of the sun. What's not typical is that it has gas moving towards us at 30% of the...

Astronomers uncover statistical evidence for recoiling supermassive black holes

Galactic collisions are events of breathtaking proportions. The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers plunge into a chaotic orbital dance that eventually coalesce into a single remnant. On their way to that point, they could eventually get "kicked" out of the center of their galaxy—and finding these "recoiling" black holes has been a challenge of cosmology for decades.

"Little red dot" in early Universe is a naked supermassive black hole

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was designed to give us the ability to look at one of the earliest periods in the evolution of the Universe, a time when some of the earliest stars were putting out enough light to ionize the hydrogen that accounted for almost all of the normal matter present at the time. There were lots of ideas about what we might see, but the Universe is full of surprises. One of the first surprises was the existence of what picked up the moniker "little red dots,"...

"Little red dot" in early Universe is a naked supermassive black hole

A hidden supermassive black hole may be lurking inside the Antennae galaxies

Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes

Massive amounts of dust swirl around active nuclei at the centres of galaxies, and these discs could give rise to vast numbers of rocky planets, some even the size of stars

Scientists find wind blowing from our Milky Way's black hole after half-century search: 'There it is'

Scientists find wind blowing from our Milky Way's black hole after half-century search: 'There it is' "There is the thing that everybody’s been looking for for 50 years." After searching for 50 years, astronomers have finally discovered evidence of powerful winds blowing from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. The discovery represents a deepening of our understanding of the physics at play both around supermassive black holes and at the heart of...