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☆ A mysterious object has been spotted that is 10 million times brighter than the sun. Scientists can't work out why it hasn't exploded
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) are objects that shine ten million times brighter than the sun. NASA has been tracking so-called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX), impossible objects that can be 10 million times brighter than the sun, to understand how they work. A new study categorically confirms that M82 X-2, a ULX 12 million light-years away, is as bright as previous observation suggested it to be. But if it were not falling in, the matter shouldn't be radiating, which means the object shouldn't be that bright. (A neutron star is a superdense object left behind when a star has run out of energy and dies.)

☆ Webb telescope detects mysterious water vapor in a nearby star system
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has detected water vapor around a rocky exoplanet that orbits a star located 26 light-years away from Earth. The presence of water vapor could suggest that GJ 486 b somehow has an atmosphere, despite its heat and proximity to the star. “Water vapor in an atmosphere on a hot rocky planet would represent a major breakthrough for exoplanet science. The results from the Webb data analysis pointed to water vapor being present around GJ 486 b. Future observations of the planet using different instruments on the Webb telescope could reveal additional details about the source of the water vapor.

☆ Back Then, Baby Galaxies. Next, a Super-Mega Galactic Cluster?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Dennis Overbye | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Like basketball scouts discovering a nimble, super-tall teenager, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope reported recently that they had identified a small, captivating group of baby galaxies near the dawn of time. These galaxies, the scientists say, could well grow into one of the biggest conglomerations of mass in the universe, a vast cluster of thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars. The seven galaxies they identified date to a moment 13 billion years ago, just 650 million years after the Big Bang. He described the proto-cluster as the most distant and thus earliest such entity yet observed. Dr. Morishita was the lead author of a report on the discovery, which was published on Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

☆ Messy eating habits might reveal elusive black hole
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The clues uncovered in the experiment might help astronomers find intermediate-mass black holes by searching for evidence of their behaviors. During the simulations, the intermediate-mass black hole snagged the star in its orbit, and each time the star made another lap, the black hole took another bite out of it. Each flare is brighter than the last, creating a signature that might help astronomers find them.”The search for elusive black holesAstrophysicists are still trying to prove if intermediate-mass black holes exist in the first place. The mass of a medium-mass black hole is thought to be between that of a supermassive black hole and a much lower-mass black hole. For example, what appears to be an intermediate-mass black hole might actually be the accumulation of stellar-mass black holes.”During the 3D modeling experiment, stars were able to complete as many as five orbits around an intermediate-mass black hole before being kicked away.

☆ Artificial intelligence may have just given astronomers a better idea of what black holes really look like
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Researchers released a new, clearer image of what they believe the M87 black hole looks like. They developed a machine learning algorithm to provide clearer images of the black hole first released in 2019. The algorithm used data from thousands of simulated black holes to fill in gaps of data that created the 2019 images. The new images, published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, could provide important information for scientists studying the M87 black hole and others in the future, researchers said. "Since we cannot study black holes up-close, the detail of an image plays a critical role in our ability to understand its behavior."

☆ First photo of a black hole resembles 'skinny' doughnut
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —The first photo ever taken of a black hole looks a little sharper now. The central region is darker and larger, surrounded by a bright ring as hot gas falls into the black hole in the new image. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, called EHT, is a global network of telescopes that captured the first photograph of a black hole. Computers using PRIMO analyzed more than 30,000 high-resolution simulated images of black holes to pick out common structural details. But if heated materials in the form of plasma surround the black hole and emit light, the event horizon could be visible.

☆ That Famous Black Hole Just Got Even Darker
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Dennis Overbye | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four years ago, astronomers released the first ever image of a black hole: a reddish, puffy doughnut of light surrounding an empty, dark hole in the center of the giant galaxy M87, which lies 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. The image made visible what astronomers, and the rest of us, had only been able to imagine: a celestial entity so massive that its gravity warped space-time, drawing matter, energy and even light into its bottomless vortex. The image was released on April 10, 2019, by an astronomy squad called the Event Horizon Telescope, so named for the boundary of no return around a black hole. The new image, they say, will sharpen constraints on how well the black hole in M87 fits with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which first predicted the existence of black holes. Dr. Medeiros and her colleagues published the new image on Thursday in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

☆ Scientists unveil new and improved 'skinny donut' black hole image
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - The 2019 release of the first image of a black hole was hailed as a significant scientific achievement. There is also a larger "brightness depression" at the center - basically the donut hole - caused by light and other matter disappearing into the black hole. This supermassive black hole resides in a galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, about 54 million light-years from Earth. The M87 black hole image stems from data collected by seven radio telescopes at five locations on Earth that essentially create a planet-sized observational dish. "The image we report in the new paper is the most accurate representation of the black hole image that we can obtain with our globe-wide telescope."

☆ The solar system was hit with a gamma-ray burst so bright, it blinded scientists' equipment in space
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Chris Panella | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Our solar system was hit by a gamma-ray burst so bright, it blinded space equipment and telescopes. A gamma-ray burst that recently hit our solar system was so bright, it temporarily blinded gamma-ray instruments in space, according to a NASA release. Scientists say the gamma-ray burst (GRB), the most powerful type of explosion in the universe, was 70 times brighter than any previously recorded event. What is a gamma-ray burst? Because it blinded space instruments, they couldn't accurately record it, so scientists weren't sure how bright the burst was when it first reached our planet.

☆ NASA image may show first-ever 'rogue' supermassive black hole, leaving a trail of newborn stars in its wake
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

A NASA Hubble image may show the first runaway supermassive black hole ever discovered. Astrophysicists have long theorized that black holes could "go rogue" or "run away," if other black holes pushed them out of their galaxies. But nobody has ever confirmed a black hole wandering through intergalactic space, much less a supermassive black hole going rogue. And while two galaxies colliding is the simplest explanation for a rogue black hole, that's not what seems to have happened here. Even though they're invisible, there's no reason to worry about rogue supermassive black holes sneaking up on us from other galaxies.

☆ 5 times scientists thought they'd maybe discovered signs of extraterrestrial life but sadly didn't
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Extraterrestrial life could exist, but mysterious objects in the sky aren't evidence of aliens. Scientists have thought they were close to discovering alien life a few times — none of it via UFOs. As the US discovered a flurry of UFOs — officially called "unidentified anomalous phenomena," or UAPs — in early February, Google searches for "extraterrestrial life" and "are aliens real" spiked. There have been incidents in the past where some researchers thought they'd come close to discovering signs of alien life — or even extraterrestrial intelligence — but none were UFOs. They dubbed the first interstellar object 'Oumuamua, which is a Hawaiian term meaning "a messenger from afar arriving first."

The first full-color image released from the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope is the sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever produced, according to NASA. Space Telescope Science Institut / NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERONASA released the first batch of images from the tennis court-sized observatory to much fanfare in July. The exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb Space Telescope. Back to the moonFifty years after the final Apollo moon mission, NASA took key steps toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface. Chinese officials have also said they intend to use the space station for space tourism and commercial space initiatives.

☆ Webb telescope finds two of the most distant galaxies ever observed
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has spied one of the earliest galaxies formed after the big bang, about 350 million years after the universe began. Webb’s capability to look deeper into the universe than other telescopes is revealing previously hidden aspects of the universe, including astonishingly distant galaxies such as these two finds. Two distant galaxies were observed by the James Webb Space Telescope. Just a few hundred million years after the big bang, there were already lots of galaxies. Detection of light invisible to the human eyeThe new findings about the two galaxies might mean there are other bright galaxies waiting to be found in the distant universe.

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