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A new black hole search method has just yielded fruit, and boy is it juicy. Astronomers have found a stellar-mass black hole clocking in at around 70 times the mass of the Sun - but according to current models of stellar evolution, its size is impossible, at least in the Milky Way.
Holiday shopping season is in full force and consumers who are on the lookout for deals in stores or online may be surprised to learn that a considerable amount of research is underway to elucidate the neuroscience underlying economic behavior.
There's some irony in the fact that the darkest objects in the sky - black holes - can be responsible for some of the Universe's brightest light. Simulations of the magnetic fields surrounding black holes and neutron stars have now provided new insights into their astonishing brilliance.
How bright is the Moon? Given its relatively close proximity to Earth, and the fact that we're looking at it all the time, you'd think that would be an easy question to answer. Turns out you'd be wrong.
Yet, observations of J0030 show no hotspots at all in the pulsar's northern hemisphere — the only area of the pulsar we can see from Earth. Researchers ran simulations and found that up to three hotspots may appear in its southern hemisphere, but we can't say for sure which interpretation is correct.
The hot Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, and there’s no other possible answer consistent with what we know today.
Our entire cosmic history is theoretically well-understood, but only because we understand the theory of gravitation that underlies it, and because we know the Universe’s present expansion rate and energy composition.
Without this one ingredient, there wouldn’t be enough ‘glue’ to hold the Universe together.
A galaxy that was governed by normal matter alone (L) would display much lower rotational speeds in the outskirts than towards the center, similar to how planets in the Solar System move. However, observations indicate that rotational speeds are largely independent of radius (R) from the galactic center, leading to the inference that a large amount of invisible, or dark, matter must be present. What isn’t greatly appreciated is that without dark matter, life as we know it would not exist.
If you live in Europe, Asia, Australia or Africa, you could be in for a treat - you might be in the path of the last solar eclipse of 2019.
On December 26, places such as India, Singapore, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and some parts of Australia will be treated to a 'ring of fire' solar eclipse to end the year and, depending who you ask, the decade as well.
As the 2010s come to a close, it's time to revisit how some of the biggest space science stories shaped the decade.
From the rise of TESS to flybys of Pluto and Cassini's dramatic demise, the past ten years have produced some incredible science. Here are some of our favorite discoveries from the decade.
This animation shows how a black hole bends nearby light depending on the angle at which it is viewed.
Astronomers have been watching a nearby pulsar with a strange halo around it. That pulsar might answer a question that's puzzled astronomers for some time.
Tests to study behaviour of flames in zero gravity suggest fires could be more dangerous on moon than Earth
Playing with fire can be dangerous and never more so than when confined in a space capsule floating 250 miles above the Earth. But in the past week astronauts onboard the International Space Station have intentionally lit a series of blazes in research designed to study the behaviour of flames in zero gravity.
A high-res, still camera image of an experimental fire in low gravity conditions. Photograph: ISS/NASA/ESA
Sometimes you just have to stand back in awe at the beauty of the Universe – and that's absolutely the case with this image from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which captures the side view of a spiral galaxy know as the Whale Galaxy.
But if you look closer, the stunning picture also shows something else: the magnetic 'ropes' around the edges of the galaxy's disc. These filaments, like cosmic strands of hair, show the galaxy's magnetic field extending into its halo. The green colouring shows filaments with their magnetic field pointing towards the viewer, with the blue colouring showing filaments with their magnetic field pointing away. This phenomenon has never before been directly observed in the halo of a galaxy.
