Blazar (art)

Black Holes

X-rays Offer View Inside the Black Hole-Powered Plasma Guns

Polarized X-rays are helping astronomers take a closer look at blazars’ “plasma guns,” the particle jets powered by supermassive black holes.

Blazar (art)

Black Holes

Giant Black Holes Make Tiny, Ghost-like Particles

Blazars, the gas-guzzling black holes at the center of galaxies, could make most of the tiny particles known as neutrinos we catch on Earth.

Identifying the IceCube neutrino

Astronomy & Observing News

IceCube Neutrino Offers New Eyes on the Cosmos

A combination of neutrino detection and observations across the full spectrum of light has pinpointed a cosmic accelerator for the first time, revitalizing multi-messenger astronomy.

Black hole accretion disk + jet

Black Holes

Astronomers Decode a Black Hole Jet

Two telescopes — one on the ground and one in space — watched a black hole’s jet turn on, enabling astronomers to probe its origin.

blazar in IceCube field

Astronomy & Observing News

Where Big Bird Neutrino May Come From

Scientists might have found the source of an incredibly energetic particle that bored into the Antarctic ice sheet.

Comin' at ya' Baby

Black Holes

Mystery Signal from a Black Hole-Powered Jet

Astronomers have spotted what appears to be a regular signal coming from the blazar PG 1553+113.

black hole binary artist's impression

Black Holes

Black Hole Binary En Route to Merger?

Astronomers poring through two decades of archival and survey observations have discovered what looks like a pair of supermassive black holes closing in for a merger.

Cosmology

Fermi Detects Cosmic Fog

An international team has used the disappearance of high-energy photons to narrow in on the origin of the light suffusing the cosmos.

Galaxies

Monster Black Holes Soon to Collide?

The members of a binary black hole in Cancer, one of which is unbelievably massive, look to be on a collision course.