supermassive

28 Jun

Astronomers discover orbiting supermassive black holes

San Francisco: In what is being hailed as a "groundbreaking discovery", astronomers have for the first time observed two supermassive black holes orbiting around each other in a distant galaxy. In an article published in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers have detailed how they used radio telescopes to detect what appeared to be two black holes moving in relation to each other in a radio galaxy. Potentially, it is the smallest-ever recorded movement of an object across the sky, also known as angular motion, Xinhua news agency reported. "If you imagine a snail on the recently-discovered Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri,…

07 Feb

Black hole devouring star for a decade detected

Washington: Astronomers have detected a giant black hole that ripped apart a star and then gorged on its remains for an unusually long time -- about a decade, which is more than ten times longer than any observed episode of a stars death by black hole. Researchers made this discovery using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Swift satellite as well as European Space Agency's XMM-Newton. The trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes found evidence for a "tidal disruption event" (TDE), wherein the tidal forces due to the intense gravity from a black hole can destroy an object -- such as…