Latest news with #SpaceJaws
USA Today
14-05-2025
- Science
- USA Today
The universe's expiration date is 'much sooner than expected,' researchers say
The universe's expiration date is 'much sooner than expected,' researchers say Don't skip your mortgage or car payment, but the universe may be coming to an end a few years sooner than expected –like trillions sooner. That's the finding of some scientists in the Netherlands. Show Caption Hide Caption Cosmic predator dubbed Space Jaws gobbling up stars Cosmic "burb" gives NASA scientists opportunity to learn more about black holes and how they function. The expiration date for the universe is now sooner than experts previously thought, new research suggests. But don't cancel your summer vacation, because it's still trillions of years in the future. Experts had previously put the lifespan of the universe at 10 to the power of 1,100 years (the number would be 1 followed by 1,100 zeroes). But researchers at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, have new calculations suggesting the universe is decaying much faster than previously thought. Their findings, published May 12 in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, put the universe's end at 10 to the power of 78 years (a 1 with 78 zeros) – that's more than a vigintillion years (1 followed by 68 zeroes) but less than a Googol years (1 with 100 zeroes). NASA: Dragonfly drone passes key test. A look at its upcoming mission to Saturn's moon "So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time," said lead author Heino Falcke, a black hole expert, in a description of the research on the Radboud University website. He and fellow researchers at the university – quantum physicist Michael Wondrak and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom – based their calculations on a reinterpretation of a theorem derived by the late physicist Stephen Hawking. Within the theory of "Hawking radiation," particles and radiation could escape from a black hole, which would eventually lead to the black hole's decay. That's in opposition to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which held that black holes could only grow. Scientists calculate 'upper limit' for universe lifespan Taking Hawking radiation into account, the researchers said they based their universal end date on how long it would take for the decay of a white dwarf star, considered the most persistent of celestial bodies. "This sets a general upper limit for the lifetime of matter in the universe," they wrote in the journal article. Here on Earth, we will be unlikely to match that upper timeline as Hawking himself theorized that the Earth's population will consume enough energy to engulf the planet in a "ball of fire" within 600 years. If that doesn't come to pass, our sun will cook the Earth within a billion years anyway. For the rest of the universe, recent research suggests the dark energy that's led to the expansion of the universe could be decelerating – a possible sign the universe could begin to decay or collapse on itself in what some scientists have called the "big crunch." "Now, there is the possibility that everything comes to an end," said University of Texas at Dallas cosmologist Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, a collaborator on the dark energy research, told CBS News. "Would we consider that a good or bad thing? I don't know." Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA finds supermassive black hole called ‘Space Jaws:' Why it deserves sci-fi horror name
A monstrous black hole in a distant galaxy has earned itself a nickname worthy of a science-fiction horror movie for its gluttonous feasting on any stars that dare get near. Meet "Space Jaws." NASA coined the moniker inspired by Steven Spielberg's famous 1975 film for the supermassive black hole after the agency's telescopes uncovered it lurking like a cosmic predator 600 million light-years from Earth. Until now, the menacing entity has been "an invisible monster gulping down any wayward star that plummets toward it," NASA said in a blog post about the black hole. But the covert black hole revealed itself to astronomers earlier in 2025 with a spectacular burst of radiation known as a tidal disruption event. The explosion was so large and so bright that several NASA instruments, including the famed Hubble Space Telescope, were able to detect the black hole in an unexpected part of its host galaxy. The black hole responsible for the cosmic disruption, which is prowling inside an enormous galaxy, only betrays its presence every few tens of thousands of years, according to a team of researchers responsible for uncovering it. Why? That's how long it would take for it to metaphorically "burp" up its stellar meals. Hubble Space Telescope: NASA celebrates observatory's 35th anniversary with images Supermassive black holes, regions of space where the pull of gravity is so intense that even light doesn't have enough energy to escape, are often considered terrors of the known universe. When any object gets close to a supermassive black hole, it's typically ensnared in a powerful gravitational pull. That's due to the event horizon – a theoretical boundary known as the "point of no return" where light and other radiation can no longer escape. As their name implies, supermassive black holes are enormous (Sagittarius A*, located at the center of our Milky Way, is 4.3 million times bigger than the sun.) They're also scarily destructive and perplexing sources of enigma for astronomers who have long sought to learn more about entities that humans can't really get anywhere near. Black holes: What happens if you fall into a black hole? NASA simulations provide an answer. The newly discovered supermassive black hole, which is about one million times the mass of our sun, perplexed the team of astronomers who found it for an odd reason: It doesn't reside exactly in the center of its host galaxy, where supermassive black holes are typically found. That detail about the black hole makes the associated tidal disruption event the first of about 100 recorded so far that have not taken place in a galaxy's center, according to the researchers. "Space Jaws" even co-exists with another even larger supermassive black hole, weighing in at a gargantuan 100 million times the mass of our sun. As expected, that black hole does exist at the galaxy's center – a relatively short 2,600 light-years away from its smaller cousin. For comparison, the distance between those two black holes is one-tenth the distance between Earth's sun and Sagittarius A*. In fact, researchers suspect there is most likely a third supermassive black hole somewhere in that distant galaxy that conspired with the larger of the three to give "Space Jaws" – the smallest among them – the boot from the center. The offset black hole gave itself away when several ground-based sky survey telescopes observed a flare as bright as a supernova, but hotter and with tell-tale chemical emissions. The researchers then used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope to better pinpoint the location of the tidal disruption event. NASA then released imagery Hubble captured Jan. 16, 2025, in both ultraviolet and visible light wavelengths. The research will be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Tidal disruption events occur when a black hole consumes a hapless star, ripping it apart and swallowing it in a powerful burst of radiation. As the victim is 'spaghettified' – or stretched out like a noodle – shocks and outflows with high temperatures become visible to telescopes in both ultraviolet and visible light. The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in a low-Earth orbit since 1990, recently marked its 35th anniversary of documenting the cosmos. Built by Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California, the telescope was launched on space shuttle Discovery from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida, to document the cosmos in a way that ground telescopes never could. Throughout its three decades of service, the observatory has transmitted endless streams of stunning cosmic images, confirmed the existence of "dark matter" and helped track a black hole moving through the Milky Way. But the James Webb Space Telescope, which launched in 2021, far surpassed the abilities of Hubble. Orbiting the sun rather than Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope is outfitted with a gold-coated mirror and powerful infrared instruments. Also, in March 2025, NASA deployed into orbit its SPHEREx telescope to collect data on more than 450 million galaxies. Scientists say the SPHEREx observatory will be able to get a wider view of the galaxy – identifying objects of scientific interest that telescopes like Hubble and Webb can then go study up close. Contributing: Mike Snider, USA TODAY Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on Florida Today: From NASA, not sci-fi horror film: Meet massive black hole Space Jaws
Newsweek
09-05-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
'Space Jaws': NASA Reveals Roaming Monster Black Hole That's Eating Stars
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the cosmos, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a terrifying, roving, oft-invisible monster dubbed "Space Jaws." Lurking 600 million light-years away, the supermassive black hole—which has the same mass as some 1 million suns—betrayed its presence when it was caught shredding and then devouring a poor star that got too close. Dubbed AT2024tvd, the burst of radiation from this "tidal disruption event" (TDE) was also picked up by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array in New Mexico and Caltech's Palomar Observatory. Together, the observations revealed that this TDE is unique among the 100-odd detected to date—as it doesn't appear to come from the core of the black hole's host galaxy. An artist's impression of a supermassive black hole devouring a star. An artist's impression of a supermassive black hole devouring a star. NASA, ESA, STScI, Ralf Crawford STScI "Theorists have predicted that a population of massive black holes located away from the centers of galaxies must exist, but now we can use TDEs to find them," said paper author and astronomer professor Ryan Chornock of the University of California, Berkeley explained in a statement. "AT2024tvd is the first offset TVD captured by optical sky surveys and it open up the entire possibility of uncovering this elusive population of wandering black holes with future sky surveys," added paper lead and UC Berkeley astrophysicist Yuhan Yao. Yao added: "Right now, theorists haven't given much attention to offset TDEs. I think this discovery will motivate scientists to look for more examples of this type of event." The galaxy (orange) and the tidal disruption event (blue) as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The galaxy (orange) and the tidal disruption event (blue) as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. NASA, ESA, STScI, Yuhan Yao UC Berkeley); Joseph DePasquale (STScI In AT2024tvd's host galaxy, there is a second, larger black hole in the galactic core—one weighing some 100 million times the mass of the sun. Despite being in the same galaxy, the two supermassive holes are not bound together as a gravitational pair. At present, the two black holes are separated by only around 2,600 light-years (roughly one-tenth of the distance between Earth and Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central black hole), with the smaller hole moving around the host galaxy's bulge. In the future, the smaller black hole may spiral into its larger peer, resulting in the two merging together. As to how the smaller black hole got so far off-center—it is possible that there were originally three black holes in the galaxy's core, and the other two kicked the runt out of the litter. This, Yao says, would explain the roaming black hole's current positioning. She explained: "If the black hole went through a triple interaction with two other black holes in the galaxy's core, it can still remain bound to the galaxy, orbiting around the central region." Alternatively, it is possible that the smaller black hole was once at the center of another, smaller galaxy that collided with the host galaxy at least a billion years ago. Paper co-author and astronomer Erica Hammerstein, also of UC Berkeley, did not find any evidence of a past galaxy merger in Hubble's images of the galaxy. However, she said: "There is already good evidence that galaxy mergers enhance TDE rates, but the presence of a second black hole in AT2024tvd's host galaxy means that at some point in this galaxy's past, a merger must have happened." The full findings of the study will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about black holes? Let us know via science@
India Today
09-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
Hubble spots a black hole swallowing a Sun 100 million times the size of ours
In a discovery that reads like a scene from science fiction, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have detected a 'Space Jaws'-a wandering supermassive black hole caught in the act of swallowing a sun 600 million light-years from rare cosmic event, known as a tidal disruption event (TDE) and designated AT2024tvd, unfolded not at the center of its galaxy, but surprisingly offset, revealing a previously hidden population of roaming black black hole, weighing about a million times the mass of our Sun, lurked in the dark outskirts of its host galaxy. It only revealed itself when a star strayed too close, was stretched and shredded by the black hole's immense gravity-a process astronomers call 'spaghettification.' The star's remains were pulled into a hot, swirling disk, emitting a spectacular burst of ultraviolet and visible light that telescopes on Earth and in space quickly detected. This one million-solar-mass black hole doesn't reside exactly in the center of the host galaxy. (Photo: Nasa) What sets AT2024tvd apart is its location. While most supermassive black holes-and nearly all previously observed TDEs-sit at the heart of galaxies, this one is offset by 2,600 light-years from the galactic center. There, a much larger black hole, 100 million times the Sun's mass, dominates as an active galactic nucleus. The two black holes coexist in the same galaxy but are not gravitationally bound as a pair, making this discovery even more used a suite of observatories-including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NRAO Very Large Array-to confirm the flare's origin and its offset location. Hubble's sharp vision pinpointed the TDE, while Chandra detected X-rays from the same spot, ruling out the galactic center as the believe such wandering black holes may be remnants of past galaxy mergers or the result of gravitational 'kicks' from interactions with other black holes. Their discovery opens new avenues for finding elusive black holes away from galactic centers.'This is the first offset TDE captured by optical sky surveys, and it opens up the entire possibility of uncovering this elusive population of wandering black holes with future sky surveys,' said lead study author Yuhan Yao of UC next-generation telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory coming online, astronomers anticipate finding more of these cosmic predators prowling the universe's dark Reel
