Black holes are divided, based on their mass, into supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and stellar black holes. The mechanism that creates the later, is well understood however, the origin of SMBHs remains uncertain. One possible scenario that has been proposed is that supermassive black holes are formed from smaller intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) that merge together. But then, how are IMBHs formed? A new study tries to shed light to this question.

An international conference dedicated to X-ray spectroscopy took  place last week  in the Polish capital. The conference is funded by AHEAD. Among the various topics presented  in the conference were UFOs, acronym for ultrafast outflows: ultra-high velocity jets expelled from supermassive black holes at the core of galaxies.

The Breakthrough Listen project, an initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, detected 15 powerful, repeated radio pulses originating from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away from Earth.

An open question in modern Astrophysics is related to how fast black holes swallow matter from their companion star. Now scientists used the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories and their results challenge current models that have been developed the last 20 years.

An open question in Astrophysics is why only a small fraction of Supermassive Black holes (SMBHs) at the centre of galaxies are active. A new study now reveals a previously unknown mechanism by which black holes can be triggered.

In a recent study, astrophysicist try to answer how many black holes are there in the Milky Way. Their analysis revealed that not only our galaxy is filled with hundreds of billions of stars, but it also hosts up to 100 million black holes!!

Hitomi, the Japanese X-ray satellite that was destroyed about a month after its launch, will have a successor, after NASA and JAXA signed agreement.

Giant Radio Pulsars (GRPs) consist of sporadic and short-lived radiation, during which time the radio flux density becomes 2-3 orders of magnitudes brighter than the regular, average flux density. Now, astrophysicists used observations from the Hitomi satellite to uncover the origin of these fast radio bursts.

The X-ray pulsars were discovered in the 70s and are among the most luminous objects in the X-ray sky. They are binary systems that consist of a magnetized neutron star in orbit with a normal stellar companion.