Super Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) are formed by galaxy collisions and usually reside at the centre of the galaxies. Most, if not all galaxies, host a SMBH. Single SMBHs have been detected all over the universe, but dual SMBHs have been difficult to find. Now astronomers used a novel method to identify five pairs!
Astronomers detected an AGN, located 800 million light years away from Earth that presents evidence of turning off and on again.
Very massive stars during their lifetime may lose more than half their initial mass through winds. What is left is a hot core known as Wolf-Rayet (WR) star. The discarded outer layers that surround the star are called Wolf-Rayet nebula. Theoretical models predict that these WR nebulae should emit X-rays. Nevertheless, this X-ray emission has proved elusive. Now astrophysicists, using the XMM-Newton satellite, detected for the first time this X-ray emission from a Wolf-Rayet (WR) nebula.
AHEAD organises a school on High Resolution X-ray Astronomy, in Alicante, Spain. The school will take place on 14-17 November 2017 and is aimed to students and postdocs. Registration is now open and free of charge. For more information visit: http://webserver.javalab.ua.es/ahead/content/ahead-high-resolution-x-ray-astronomy-school
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.
The Nicholas Copernicus Astronomical Center, Poland, is facilitating a gathering of astronomers from around the world at the Staszic Palace in Warsaw on September 6-8 to enhance the power of X-ray spectroscopy in astrophysics.
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.
