Latest news with #MonthlyNotices
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover What Appears to Be the Largest Black Hole in the Universe, So Heavy That It Completely Bends the Light Around It Into a Giant Ring
Astronomers have discovered what could be the largest black hole ever detected. With a mass of 36 billion times that of our Sun, its gravity is so powerful that it bends the light of an entire galaxy behind it into a near-perfect circle called an Einstein ring, effectively reducing a realm with trillions of stars of its own into an astrophysical fashion accessory. It's 10,000 times as heavy as our Milky Way's own central black hole, and is nigh unto breaking the universe's theoretical upper limit. If anything ever warranted being called a cosmic monster, it's this. "This is amongst the top ten most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive," Thomas Collett, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth and coauthor of a new study about the giant in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, said in a statement about the work. Other detections of similar sized objects, Collett noted, have generally come with uncertainties too large to be definitive. This not-super but ultramassive black hole lurks in the center of the famous Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy, which itself ranks among the most massive ever spotted. The galaxy is considered a fossil group, which formed from other large galaxies — and their constituent supermassive black holes — collapsing together. "So we're seeing the end state of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation," Collet said. It's no exaggeration to say, then, that we're literally witnessing a black hole's final form. Located some five billion light years away, the Cosmic Horseshoe is so named due to its gravitational lensing effect, a phenomenon in which the light of a background galaxy is warped by the gravity of a foreground one. Lensing is common throughout the cosmos, and it can be a fortuitous tool for astronomers, acting like a magnifying glass that allows them to observe distant objects whose light would otherwise be too faint to examine. But in this case, the huge foreground galaxy and its companion in the background happen to be in almost perfect alignment with our Earthly perspective, bending the light into an incomplete ring. Astronomers have long suspected that there was a black hole at the heart of the Cosmic Horseshoe, but have never been able to spot — let alone measure — it. One of the reasons why is its extreme distance, at billions of light years away. But the even more impressive hurdle that's been overcome is that it's a "dormant" black hole that's no longer accreting matter, according to Carlos Melo, lead author from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. "Typically, for such remote systems, black hole mass measurements are only possible when the black hole is active," Melo said. "But those accretion-based estimates often come with significant uncertainties." When a black hole devours significant amounts of matter, the infalling material gets heated up and radiates huge amounts of energy and light, forming what's known as an active galactic nucleus. (The brightest of these are called quasars.) But this detection "relied purely on [the black hole's] immense gravitational pull and the effect it has on its surroundings," Melo said. Their method involved a combination of lensing and what's known as stellar kinematics, which allows astronomers to infer a black hole's mass by studying the velocity of stars trapped in the surrounding galaxy. "What is particularly exciting is that this method allows us to detect and measure the mass of these hidden ultramassive black holes across the universe, even when they are completely silent," Melo said. And its size is no coincidence. There's a reason, the astronomers argue, that we're finding this ultramassive rarity in one of the heaviest galaxies on record, and not in one of relatively unremarkable size like our Milky Way, which hosts a comparatively puny black hole of 4.3 million solar masses. "We think the size of both is intimately linked," Collet said, "because when galaxies grow, they can funnel matter down onto the central black hole." That may seem like an obvious conclusion to draw, but how supermassive black holes attain their enormous sizes remains one of the great mysteries of cosmology. Some have been spotted so early on in the universe's history that they physically shouldn't exist, not having enough time to accrete the mass they possess. If it formed from galactic mergers, it provides a strong clue of at least one mechanism that can spawn these colossal objects. More on black holes: Bizarre "Infinity Galaxy" Could Hold the Secrets of Supermassive Black Holes Solve the daily Crossword
Time of India
2 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
Two galaxies are dancing 3 billion light-years away, and it could impact the Milky Way's future in THIS way
The universe is dynamic and constantly moving, and so are the galaxies enclosed in it. But what if two huge spiral galaxies draw closer, due to their gravity and pull everything around them into detailed orbital patterns? This is not just fiction; it teaches us about the grand future awaiting our own Milky Way. Recently, astronomers studied this distant 'dance' of the Milky Way and a neighbouring galaxy that helps us understand how galactic structures form and evolve. Galaxies are doing their cosmic 'dance', but for what? According to the study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, under a collaboration between the University of Queensland and the Australian National University, astronomers Delegate survey, have turned their telescopes toward a cosmic neighborhood inhabited by two spirals, NGC 5713 and NGC 5719. These galaxies are currently in the late stages of merging, roughly 3 billion years ahead of the collision we forecast between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Dr. Sarah Sweet, leading the survey, says in the study, 'The Milky Way will merge with Andromeda and their respective smaller dwarf galaxies in the next 2.5 billion years … we don't know how typical it is,'. To examine this, the team studied NGC 5713 and NGC 5719, observing how their dwarf satellite galaxies dance around them. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 10 Best Mattresses by Consumer Reports (Here's What You May Not Want to Miss) QuestionHero Learn More Undo According to Dr. Sweet, 'This paper shows these galaxies—NGC5713 and NGC5719—combine as if they were dancing with the closely located dwarf satellites rotating around them' , as reported by the Australian National University. Why does that matter Dr. Sweet also says, 'Without such a merger, the galaxies might remain in a randomly distributed cloud, not arranged in beautiful, coherent planes like those around the Milky Way and Andromeda'. This structured arrangement among satellites tells about a pattern that might surface in our own Local Group. Professor Helmut Jerjen of Australian National University says to the University reporter, 'We will test whether the Milky Way and Andromeda Local Group is a poster child or a cosmic outlier'. He says that current models struggle to replicate how dwarf galaxies align in satellite planes, suggesting our simulations may need a serious update. Why do galactic mergers happen Galaxy mergers happen simply because of gravity. Galaxies move through space, and when two drift close enough, their mutual gravitational pull draws them together, eventually leading to a collision or merger. According to NASA, as the galaxies merge, gravitational forces simultaneously change their shapes, release streams of stars and gas or 'tidal tails', and compress gas clouds. If the colliding galaxies don't pass through cleanly, they coalesce into a single larger galaxy, often changing spirals into elliptical or irregular shapes. Such mergers also funnel gas toward their centers, feeding central black holes and sometimes triggering dramatic changes.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
Venus and Jupiter ‘kiss' in the sky: Know the best time and place to watch the planetary conjunction
The universe is dynamic and constantly moving and so are the galaxies enclosed in it. But what if two huge spiral galaxies draw closer, due to their gravity and pull everything around them into detailed orbital patterns. This is not just fiction, it teaches us about the grand future awaiting our own Milky Way. Recently, astronomers studied this distant 'dance' of the Milky Way and a neighbouring galaxy that helps us understand how galactic structures form and evolve. Galaxies are doing their cosmic 'dance' but for what? According to the study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, under a collaboration between the University of Queensland and the Australian National University, astronomers Delegate survey, have turned their telescopes toward a cosmic neighborhood inhabited by two spirals, NGC 5713 and NGC 5719. These galaxies are currently in the late stages of merging, roughly 3 billion years ahead of the collision we forecast between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Dr. Sarah Sweet, leading the survey, says in the study, 'The Milky Way will merge with Andromeda and their respective smaller dwarf galaxies in the next 2.5 billion years … we don't know how typical it is,'. To examine this, the team studied NGC 5713 and NGC 5719, observing how their dwarf satellite galaxies dance around them. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Online Skin Care Consultation - Learn More AskLayers Learn More Undo According to Dr. Sweet, 'This paper shows these galaxies—NGC5713 and NGC5719—combine as if they were dancing with the closely located dwarf satellites rotating around them' , as reported by the Australian National University. Why does that matter? Dr. Sweet also says, 'Without such a merger, the galaxies might remain in a randomly distributed cloud, not arranged in beautiful, coherent planes like those around the Milky Way and Andromeda'. This structured arrangement among satellites tells about a pattern that might surface in our own Local Group. Professor Helmut Jerjen of Australian National University says to the University reporter, 'We will test whether the Milky Way and Andromeda Local Group is a poster child or a cosmic outlier'. He says that current models struggle to replicate how dwarf galaxies align in satellite planes, suggesting our simulations may need a serious update. Why do galactic mergers happen? Galaxy mergers happen simply because of gravity. Galaxies move through space, and when two drift close enough, their mutual gravitational pull draws them together, eventually leading to a collision or merger. According to NASA, as the galaxies merge, gravitational forces simultaneously change their shapes, release streams of stars and gas or 'tidal tails', and compress gas clouds. If the colliding galaxies don't pass through cleanly, they coalesce into a single larger galaxy, often changing spirals into elliptical or irregular shapes. Such mergers also funnel gas toward their centers, feeding central black holes and sometimes triggering dramatic changes.
Time of India
7 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
Black hole 36 billion times Sun's mass discovered, likely the biggest ever in space
Scientists have identified what may be the most massive black hole ever observed, an ultramassive object with a mass of around 36 billion times that of the Sun. Located roughly 5 billion light-years from Earth, the black hole sits at the center of a giant galaxy in the Cosmic Horseshoe system, named for the striking horseshoe-shaped ring of light formed by gravitational lensing , an effect where massive objects bend the light of more distant galaxies behind them. Productivity Tool Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide By Metla Sudha Sekhar View Program Finance Introduction to Technical Analysis & Candlestick Theory By Dinesh Nagpal View Program Finance Financial Literacy i e Lets Crack the Billionaire Code By CA Rahul Gupta View Program Digital Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Neil Patel By Neil Patel View Program Finance Technical Analysis Demystified- A Complete Guide to Trading By Kunal Patel View Program Productivity Tool Excel Essentials to Expert: Your Complete Guide By Study at home View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals Batch 2 By Ansh Mehra View Program The research, published August 7 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, details the use of gravitational lensing and stellar motion data to uncover and weigh the previously undetected black hole. A Sleeping giant This black hole is considered dormant, meaning it is not actively feeding on material and therefore does not emit the radiation typically used to identify black holes. That made it invisible to traditional methods, which rely on high-energy signals like X-rays. Live Events Instead, researchers measured its mass by analyzing how its gravity warps space-time, bending light from a background galaxy into the Cosmic Horseshoe shape, and how stars within the galaxy orbit the core at extreme speeds, nearly 400 kilometers per second. By combining both effects, the team was able to calculate the black hole's enormous mass with high confidence. A new way to find the universe's heaviest objects The project was led by Carlos AO Melo, a PhD candidate at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Collett of the University of Portsmouth in the UK. The team used data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the MUSE instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile to carry out the analysis. The galaxy harboring this black hole is a so-called 'fossil group,' the result of a cosmic merger between multiple galaxies, which scientists believe may have led to the black hole's formation. When galaxies merge, their central black holes are expected to eventually combine as well, producing an even larger object over billions of years. This discovery adds weight to a growing body of evidence that supermassive black holes grow in tandem with their galaxies, and in some cases, may outgrow them entirely. The Milky Way and its neighbor Andromeda are on a collision course expected to culminate in a similar merged galaxy several billion years from now, potentially forming a black hole just as massive.
AllAfrica
04-08-2025
- Science
- AllAfrica
New sound proof we're living in a giant void
Looking up at the night sky, it may seem our cosmic neighborhood is packed full of planets, stars and galaxies. But scientists have long suggested there may be far fewer galaxies in our cosmic surroundings than expected. In fact, it appears we live in a giant cosmic void with roughly 20% lower than the average density of matter. Not every physicist is convinced that this is the case. But our recent paper analyzing distorted sounds from the early universe, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, strongly backs up the idea. Cosmology is currently in a crisis known as the Hubble tension: the local universe appears to be expanding about 10% faster than expected. The predicted rate comes from extrapolating observations of the infant universe forward to the present day using the standard model of cosmology, known as Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM). We can observe the early universe in great detail through the cosmic microwave background (CMB), relic radiation from the early universe, when it was 1,100 times smaller than it is today. Sound waves in the early universe ultimately created areas of low and high densities, or temperatures. By studying CMB temperature fluctuations on different scales, we can essentially 'listen' to the sound of the early universe, which is especially 'noisy' at particular scales. These fluctuations are now imprinted in the CMB, and dubbed 'baryon acoustic oscillations' (BAOs). Since these became the seeds for galaxies and other structures, the patterns are also visible in the distribution of galaxies. By measuring these patterns, we can learn how galaxies are clustered at different redshifts (distances). A particularly striking pattern, with lots of clustering, occurs at an angle called the 'angular BAO scale.' Illustration showing that slightly more galaxies formed along the ripples of the primordial sound waves (marked blue) than elsewhere. Then the rings of galaxies stretched with the expansion of the universe. Other galaxies are dimmed in this image to make the effect easier to see. Image: NASA This measurement ultimately helps astronomers and cosmologists learn about the universe's expansion history by providing something physicists call a 'standard ruler.' This is essentially an astronomical object or a feature on the sky with a well-known size. By measuring its angular size on the sky, cosmologists can therefore calculate its distance from Earth using trigonometry. One can also use the redshift to determine how fast the cosmos is expanding. The larger it appears on the sky at a certain redshift, the faster the universe is expanding. My colleagues and I previously argued that the Hubble tension might be due to our location within a large void. That's because the sparse amount of matter in the void would be gravitationally attracted to the denser matter outside it, continuously flowing out of the void. In previous research, we showed that this flow would make it look like the local universe is expanding about 10% faster than expected. That would solve the Hubble tension. But we wanted more evidence. And we know a local void would slightly distort the relation between the BAO angular scale and the redshift due to the faster-moving matter in the void and its gravitational effect on light from outside. So in our new paper, Vasileios Kalaitzidis and I set out to test the predictions of the void model using BAO measurements collected over the last 20 years. We compared our results to models without a void under the same background expansion history. In the void model, the BAO ruler should look larger on the sky at any given redshift. And this excess should become even larger at low redshift (close distance), in line with the Hubble tension. The observations confirm this prediction. Our results suggest that a universe with a local void is about one hundred million times more likely than a cosmos without one, when using BAO measurements and assuming the universe expanded according to the standard model of cosmology informed by the CMB. Our research shows that the ΛCDM model without any local void is in '3.8 sigma tension' with the BAO observations. This means the likelihood of a universe without a void fitting these data is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads 13 times in a row. By contrast, the chance of the BAO data looking the way they do in void models is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads just twice in a row. In short, these models fit the data quite well. In the future, it will be crucial to obtain more accurate BAO measurements at low redshift, where the BAO standard ruler looks larger on the sky – even more so if we are in a void. The average expansion rate so far follows directly from the age of the universe, which we can estimate from the ages of old stars in the Milky Way. A local void would not affect the age of the universe, but some proposals do affect it. These and other probes will shed more light on the Hubble crisis in cosmology. Indranil Banik is postdoctoral research fellow in astrophysics, University of Portsmouth This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
