Latest news with #blackhole
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Labour is pioneering the Blackadder approach to public finances
After Labour took office in July 2024, ministers talked relentlessly about 'finding a £22bn black hole in the public finances on entering office'. It was a cynical, deeply misleading narrative, used to justify hefty tax rises unveiled by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, in her October Budget but omitted from Labour's election manifesto. For the 'black hole' was, according to Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), probably the UK's most respected analyst of our national accounts, 'obvious to anyone who dared look'. Labour deliberately ignored fiscal reality to serve its own political ends – a governing strategy the party now looks set to test to destruction. During the second half of 2024, the Government's endlessly downbeat 'black hole' rhetoric and tax increases hammered business and consumer sentiment, stopping economic growth in its tracks as GDP flatlined. The 0.7pc GDP uptick during the first three months of this year was a chimaera – driven above all by a 4pc surge in exports ahead of President Donald Trump's expected move to raise tariffs on goods sold in the US. The UK economy is dangerously fragile. Inflation soared to 3.5pc during the year to April, up from 2.6pc the previous month, as firms passed on Reeves's £25bn annual rise in employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) and a hefty increase in the minimum wage. That's getting on for twice the Bank of England's 2pc target, ruling out any more interest rate cuts for some months. That same NIC rise, introduced last month, meant April should have been a bumper month for tax receipts. But Labour's inflation-busting public sector pay rises and soaring welfare payments saw the Government take on £20.2bn of extra debt last month alone. Meanwhile, borrowing for the financial year ended March was £148bn – a cool £11bn more than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast just weeks ago in Reeve's 2025 Spring Statement. And it's an astonishing £61bn more than the watchdog's estimate back in March 2024. UK government spending has long outstripped the economy's ability to generate tax revenues, as massive annual borrowing totals add to our growing stock of national debt. The last time we ran an annual budget surplus was in 2000/01, almost a quarter of a century ago. Each year, the OBR pretends borrowing will be much lower than it actually will be – then the media fails to compare current outcomes with previous estimates, focussing instead on the political drama of future forecasts. This result is a collective obsession with ideological narrative over fiscal reality. Between 2010 and 2019, for instance, the UK's national debt ballooned from 50pc of GDP to 80pc – a period absurdly dubbed 'the austerity years'. In her Spring Statement, Reeves boasted about £9.9bn of 'headroom' she had allowed for on total spending of £1,351bn in four years' time – a contingency of well below 1pc, so small as to be meaningless. Yet she was dubbed 'the Iron Lady'! That contingency has now completely gone, in part because financial markets, alarmed at Labour's high spending, have pushed up gilt yields and, therefore, debt service costs. No less than £9bn of the £20bn borrowed last month was spent on debt interest. The annual debt service bill is now a grotesque £105bn – more than the state spends on transport and schools combined. But the main reason Reeves's 'headroom' vaporised is that growth has slowed, resulting in weaker tax receipts, and Labour's tax rises will compound the problem by slowing growth even more. The Bank of England's growth forecasts during this parliament are lower than those of the OBR, starting with 0.75pc this year, compared to a 1pc 2025 forecast from the official fiscal watchdog. If the Bank is right, Reeves's £9.9bn of headroom in four years' time turns into a £30bn shortfall, according to calculations by Elgin Advisory, a risk consultancy. Such concerns about Labour's big-borrowing, growth-sapping tendencies are increasingly evident on government debt markets. Over the last nine months, the Bank of England has dropped base rates a full percentage point from 5.25pc to 4.25pc. But long-term government borrowing costs have moved a similar amount in the opposite direction, with the 30-year gilt yield surging from 4.35pc in the run-up to Reeves's October budget to 5.55pc now. Markets and policymakers are at loggerheads, which spells looming systemic danger as the markets always win. For months, long-term borrowing costs have been above their peak during the October 2022 'mini-Budget' crisis – so where is the media outcry? Within investor circles, there is now open talk of a potential 'gilts strike' – with the Government only able to borrow at very sharply elevated interest rates – or even a 1976-style insolvency crisis. We're not there yet, but the dangers are very real. While the 'bond vigilantes' are starting to inflict pain around the world, with US and Japanese long-term yields rising, the UK is heavily exposed, lacking the 'reserve currency' might of America and with a lot of our debt held by overseas investors. Plus, a third of our government debt is index-linked – so as inflation rises, the balance sheet squeeze is punishing. 'If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through'. So said General Melchett in that television comedy classic Blackadder, played by Stephen Fry. That's Labour's approach to managing our public finances – but it's anything but funny. The UK is crying out for economic leadership – in the form of fiscal discipline, lower taxes and other supply-side measures to deliver the growth needed to rescue our public finances. But, like General Melchett, this Government – and much of our political and media class in fact – is determined not to 'look facts in the face'. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
25-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Labour is pioneering the Blackadder approach to public finances
After Labour took office in July 2024, ministers talked relentlessly about 'finding a £22bn black hole in the public finances on entering office'. It was a cynical, deeply misleading narrative, used to justify hefty tax rises unveiled by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, in her October Budget but omitted from Labour's election manifesto. For the 'black hole' was, according to Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), probably the UK's most respected analyst of our national accounts, 'obvious to anyone who dared look'. Labour deliberately ignored fiscal reality to serve its own political ends – a governing strategy the party now looks set to test to destruction. During the second half of 2024, the Government's endlessly downbeat 'black hole' rhetoric and tax increases hammered business and consumer sentiment, stopping economic growth in its tracks as GDP flatlined. The 0.7pc GDP uptick during the first three months of this year was a chimaera – driven above all by a 4pc surge in exports ahead of President Donald Trump's expected move to raise tariffs on goods sold in the US. The UK economy is dangerously fragile. Inflation soared to 3.5pc during the year to April, up from 2.6pc the previous month, as firms passed on Reeves's £25bn annual rise in employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) and a hefty increase in the minimum wage. That's getting on for twice the Bank of England's 2pc target, ruling out any more interest rate cuts for some months. That same NIC rise, introduced last month, meant April should have been a bumper month for tax receipts. But Labour's inflation-busting public sector pay rises and soaring welfare payments saw the Government take on £20.2bn of extra debt last month alone. Meanwhile, borrowing for the financial year ended March was £148bn – a cool £11bn more than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast just weeks ago in Reeve's 2025 Spring Statement. And it's an astonishing £61bn more than the watchdog's estimate back in March 2024. UK government spending has long outstripped the economy's ability to generate tax revenues, as massive annual borrowing totals add to our growing stock of national debt. The last time we ran an annual budget surplus was in 2000/01, almost a quarter of a century ago. Each year, the OBR pretends borrowing will be much lower than it actually will be – then the media fails to compare current outcomes with previous estimates, focussing instead on the political drama of future forecasts. This result is a collective obsession with ideological narrative over fiscal reality. Between 2010 and 2019, for instance, the UK's national debt ballooned from 50pc of GDP to 80pc – a period absurdly dubbed 'the austerity years'. In her Spring Statement, Reeves boasted about £9.9bn of 'headroom' she had allowed for on total spending of £1,351bn in four years' time – a contingency of well below 1pc, so small as to be meaningless. Yet she was dubbed 'the Iron Lady'! That contingency has now completely gone, in part because financial markets, alarmed at Labour's high spending, have pushed up gilt yields and, therefore, debt service costs. No less than £9bn of the £20bn borrowed last month was spent on debt interest. The annual debt service bill is now a grotesque £105bn – more than the state spends on transport and schools combined. But the main reason Reeves's 'headroom' vaporised is that growth has slowed, resulting in weaker tax receipts, and Labour's tax rises will compound the problem by slowing growth even more. The Bank of England's growth forecasts during this parliament are lower than those of the OBR, starting with 0.75pc this year, compared to a 1pc 2025 forecast from the official fiscal watchdog. If the Bank is right, Reeves's £9.9bn of headroom in four years' time turns into a £30bn shortfall, according to calculations by Elgin Advisory, a risk consultancy. Such concerns about Labour's big-borrowing, growth-sapping tendencies are increasingly evident on government debt markets. Over the last nine months, the Bank of England has dropped base rates a full percentage point from 5.25pc to 4.25pc. But long-term government borrowing costs have moved a similar amount in the opposite direction, with the 30-year gilt yield surging from 4.35pc in the run-up to Reeves's October budget to 5.55pc now. Markets and policymakers are at loggerheads, which spells looming systemic danger as the markets always win. For months, long-term borrowing costs have been above their peak during the October 2022 'mini-Budget' crisis – so where is the media outcry? Within investor circles, there is now open talk of a potential 'gilts strike' – with the Government only able to borrow at very sharply elevated interest rates – or even a 1976-style insolvency crisis. We're not there yet, but the dangers are very real. While the 'bond vigilantes' are starting to inflict pain around the world, with US and Japanese long-term yields rising, the UK is heavily exposed, lacking the 'reserve currency' might of America and with a lot of our debt held by overseas investors. Plus, a third of our government debt is index-linked – so as inflation rises, the balance sheet squeeze is punishing. 'If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through'. So said General Melchett in that television comedy classic Blackadder, played by Stephen Fry. That's Labour's approach to managing our public finances – but it's anything but funny. The UK is crying out for economic leadership – in the form of fiscal discipline, lower taxes and other supply-side measures to deliver the growth needed to rescue our public finances. But, like General Melchett, this Government – and much of our political and media class in fact – is determined not to 'look facts in the face'.
CNN
23-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
‘Cosmic joust': Astronomers catch first sight of two dueling galaxies
(CNN) — Astronomers have for the first time spotted two galaxies in the throes of a deep-space 'duel.' Using combined observations from ground-based telescopes over nearly four years, the researchers saw the distant galactic neighbors charging toward each other at more than 1.1 million miles per hour (1.8 million kilometers per hour). One repeatedly wielded its intense beams of radiation at the other, dispersing gas clouds and weakening its opponent's ability to form new stars. 'That's why we call it a 'cosmic joust,'' said Pasquier Noterdaeme, a researcher for the Paris Institute of Astrophysics and the French-Chilean Laboratory for Astronomy in Chile who was part of the team that made the discovery. What Noterdaeme and his colleagues spied was a distant snapshot of the two galaxies in the process of merging into one large galaxy 11 billion light-years away. The findings, described in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, provide a rare look into earlier times in the universe, when star formation and galaxy mergers were more common. Working with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, the researchers found that the 'attacking' galaxy's piercing radiation comes from within its bright core, a quasar, powered by a supermassive black hole. The intense gravitational influence of a black hole draws matter toward it in such an energetic way that dust and gas heat up to millions of degrees and become luminous, according to NASA. These luminous materials spiral around the black hole before entering, forming what's called an 'accretion disk,' and jets of energetic matter beam out away from the center. Each blast of the quasar's ultraviolet waves are about a thousand times stronger than the radiation of our Milky Way, causing hydrogen molecules from some of the 'victim' galaxy's star-forming nurseries to split and disperse, according to the study. Stars form when large clumps of gas and dust reach a critical mass and collapse under their own gravity. However, researchers observed that after being dispersed by the radiation, the clouds were not dense or large enough to create new stars. As additional material from the victim galaxy is drawn within reach of the supermassive black hole, it fuels the quasar with more energy. Quasars have been known to essentially 'switch off' from time to time, said study coauthor Sergei Balashev, a researcher at the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, which could give molecular clouds the opportunity to reform. 'It's really the first time that we can see the radiative effect of a quasar on the molecular gas of a nearby galaxy,' Balashev said. Until now, this effect had only been theorized but not confirmed through direct observation. Scientists initially wanted to observe this particular quasar more closely because of its unique features among thousands of low-resolution spectra, which are like fingerprints for distant celestial objects, offering clues about composition, temperature and activity within them. 'It's really (like) finding a needle in a haystack,' Balashev said. However, the light from quasars is so powerful that it often outshines their own host galaxies, making it difficult to observe other galaxies close by, according to Noterdaeme, the study's co-lead author. Highly dynamic, luminous quasars are rare, according to NASA. Only about 1,000 of these objects are known to exist in the early days of the universe, Anniek Gloudemans, a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, previously told CNN via email. 'At first, we just knew there was some molecular gas between the (attacking galaxy's) quasar and us. It's only after, when we started to look with bigger telescopes, that we detected there were actually two galaxies,' Noterdaeme said. While the dueling pair appears to be overlapping in the low-resolution spectra, the high-resolution imaging capabilities of ALMA revealed the galaxies are actually separated by thousands of light-years. Using the Very Large Telescope, the researchers were able to study the density and distance of the gas affected by the quasar's radiation. Since the light from these objects came from billions of light-years away in the early universe, it's possible the two galaxies have already merged by now, but there is no way to be sure, Balashev said. Scientists believe quasars and galaxy mergers used to be far more common earlier in the universe's lifetime, said Dong-Woo Kim, an astrophysicist with the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who was not involved in the research. Galaxies merge when they are pulled toward each other by gravity, and the universe used to be more densely packed together. Over time, the universe has expanded, and more galaxies have combined into larger ones, Kim said. Noterdaeme said that 10 billion years ago was an interesting time in the universe, adding that astronomers call this period when stars formed at a rapid rate the 'noon of the universe.' Though less frequent, galaxy mergers are still happening all the time, Kim said. Even our own Milky Way is expected to merge with the Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years, but the study team isn't certain yet whether the 'cosmic joust' phenomenon is a common feature when two galaxies collide and form a larger one. 'It's an exciting field to study,' Kim said. 'Research like this can teach us more about the birth of new galaxies and observe how they evolve over time.'
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hubble spots a roaming black hole light-years from where it belongs
A black hole skulking in the shadows 600 million light-years away in space gave itself away with a dazzling flash, the light of a star it had just gnashed and eaten. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories, astronomers found the cosmic object in an unexpected place. Rather than sitting dead center in its galaxy like most supermassive black holes, this one was thousands of light-years away from the core — 2,600, in fact. What's more, there is another enormous black hole that is the actual nucleus. While the catawampus black hole has the mass of 1 million suns, the one that defines the galactic center is 100 million times the mass of the sun. The burst of radiation detected, known as a tidal disruption event or TDE, began when a star wandered too close to the black hole. If not for that stellar snack, the black hole would have escaped astronomers' notice. "It opens up the entire possibility of uncovering this elusive population of wandering black holes with future sky surveys," said study author Yuhan Yao of UC Berkeley in a statement. "I think this discovery will motivate scientists to look for more examples of this type of event." SEE ALSO: Soviets were headed to Venus in 1972. The spacecraft is about to return. The Hubble Space Telescope, a partnership of NASA and the European Space Agency, confirms the presence of a wandering supermassive black hole, 600 million light-years from Earth. Credit: NASA Out of about 100 TDE events discovered through surveys so far, this one, dubbed AT2024tvd, is the first scientists have seen emerging from a supermassive black hole that is not a galactic nucleus. The research team's findings, announced by NASA, will be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Black holes are some of the most inscrutable phenomena in outer space. About 50 years ago, they were little more than a theory — a kooky mathematical answer to a physics problem. Even astronomers at the top of their field weren't entirely convinced they existed. Today, not only are black holes accepted science, they're getting their pictures taken by a collection of enormous, synced-up radio dishes on Earth. Unlike a planet or star, black holes don't have surfaces. Instead, they have a boundary called an "event horizon," or a point of no return. If anything swoops too close, like the doomed aforementioned star, it will fall in, never to escape the hole's gravitational clutch. The most common kind, called a stellar black hole, is thought to be the result of an enormous star dying in a supernova explosion. The star's material then collapses onto itself, condensing into a relatively tiny area. How supermassive black holes form is even more elusive. Astrophysicists believe these invisible giants lurk in the heart of virtually all galaxies. Recent Hubble observations have bolstered the theory that they begin in the dusty cores of starburst galaxies, where new stars are rapidly assembled, but scientists are still teasing that out. A supermassive black hole is off-center in a galaxy 600 million light-years from Earth. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Ralf Crawford illustration As the star was stretched and torn asunder in the TDE, some of its gas formed a glowing ring around the black hole. The resulting flare flashed brightly in ultraviolet and visible light. Telescopes on the ground, such as the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, first detected it. But it was Hubble that confirmed the flare's off-center location. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in space and the Very Large Array in New Mexico provided supporting data. The two supermassive black holes both reside in the same galaxy, yet they are not a binary pair, meaning they're not bound to each other through gravity. Scientists don't know how the wandering black hole got there. A star's remnants form a disk around a hidden supermassive black hole. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Ralf Crawford illustration One possibility is that the smaller black hole came from a smaller galaxy that at some point merged with the larger one, bringing its central black hole along for the ride. Eventually, the smaller black hole may spiral into the larger one. For now, it's doing its own thing. Another possibility is that it was ganged up on by a couple of bully black holes. In so-called three-body interactions, the lowest-mass object can be evicted from the center of a galaxy, with the two others remaining in the galaxy's core. "Theorists have predicted that a population of massive black holes located away from the centers of galaxies must exist," said Ryan Chornock, a member of the ZTF team, in a statement, "but now we can use TDEs to find them.'
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers saw one galaxy impale another. The damage was an eye-opener.
Two extremely distant galaxies appear to be ramming into each other over and over again at speeds of over 1 million mph. The pair — dueling it out 11 billion light-years away in space — has given astronomers their first detailed look at a galaxy merger in which one impales another with intense radiation. The armed galaxy's lance is a quasar, a portmanteau for "quasi-stellar object." "We hence call this system the 'cosmic joust,'" said Pasquier Noterdaeme, one of the researchers from the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, in a statement. A quasar is a blindingly bright galaxy core — brighter than all of the galaxy's starlight combined, according to NASA. Through telescopes, these sometimes look like a single star in the sky, but they're actually beams of light from a feasting black hole at a galaxy's core. Scientists have suspected quasars may "turn on the lights" when two galaxies crash into each other. But finding direct proof has been challenging. Not only did the new observations show how a cosmic collision helps a quasar light up, it also revealed that the quasar can be a weapon of mass destruction, snuffing out another galaxy's ability to form new stars. These findings, published in the journal Nature, may help scientists better understand how supermassive black holes can shape the fates of other entire galaxies. SEE ALSO: Hubble spots a roaming black hole light-years from where it belongs A galaxy's quasar, right, snuffs out another galaxy's ability to form new stars in this artist's rendering. Credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser illustration When astronomer Maarten Schmidt found the first quasar in 1963, it looked like a star, though it was much too far away for that to have been the source. Scientists have since learned that quasars are relics of a much earlier time in the universe. The nearest quasars to Earth are still several hundred million light-years away, meaning they are observed now as they were hundreds of millions of years ago. That quasars aren't found closer to home is a clue they existed when the universe was much younger. But scientists seek them out for studies because they may provide insight into the evolution of the universe. Though the research team saw the collision as if it was happening now, it occurred long ago, when the universe was only 18 percent of its current age. That's possible because extremely distant light and other forms of radiation take time to reach our telescopes, meaning astronomers see their targets as they were in the past. "We hence call this system the 'cosmic joust.'" To conduct the study, an international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, both peering up at the sky from the Chilean desert. Their research supports a long-held theory: that galaxy mergers can trigger quasars, and that the energy from them can alter their surroundings in powerful ways. "Here we see for the first time the effect of a quasar's radiation directly on the internal structure of the gas in an otherwise regular galaxy," said co-author Sergei Balashev, a researcher at the Ioffe Institute in Russia, in a statement. The gas that would usually feed star-making activity within the wounded galaxy was transformed: Rather than being dispersed evenly in large loose clouds, the quasar's radiation clumped the gas in super tiny, dense pockets, rendering it useless for star births. This suggests the quasar's energy effectively sterilized the galaxy — at least wherever the radiation hit. Black holes in general are some of the most inscrutable things in the cosmos. Astronomers believe these invisible giants skulk at the center of virtually all galaxies. Falling into one is an automatic death sentence. Any cosmic stuff that wanders too close reaches a point of no return. A wide view of the two galaxies on the verge of merging, dubbed "the cosmis joust," in the distant universe. Credit: DESI Legacy Survey But scientists have observed something weird at the edge of black holes' accretion disks, the rings of rapidly spinning material around the holes: A tiny amount of the material can suddenly get rerouted. When this happens, high-energy particles get flung outward as a pair of jets, blasting in opposite directions, though astronomers haven't quite figured out how it all works. It's also still a mystery as to when exactly in cosmic history the universe started making them. The quasar didn't just affect the other galaxy. The sparring apparently allowed new reserves of fuel to flow into the galaxy hosting the quasar, bringing fresh gas within reach of the supermassive black hole powering it. As the black hole eats the material, it perpetuates the violence. "These mergers are thought to bring huge amounts of gas to supermassive black holes residing in galaxy centers," Balashev said.
