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An artist's concept looks down into the core of the galaxy M87, which is just left of center and appears as a large blue dot. A bright blue-white, narrow and linear jet of plasma transects the illustration from center left to upper right. It begins at the source of the jet, the galaxy’s black hole, which is surrounded by a blue spiral of material. At lower right is a red giant star that is far from the black hole and close to the viewer. A bridge of glowing gas links the star to a smaller white dwarf star companion immediately to its left. Engorged with infalling hydrogen from the red giant star, the smaller star exploded in a blue-white flash, which looks like numerous diffraction spikes emitted in all directions. Thousands of stars are in the background.

NASA’s Hubble Finds that a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions

6 min read

In a surprise finding, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called…

Article3 weeks ago
A field of galaxies of various shapes, sizes, colors, and types against a black backgrouns.

NASA’s Hubble Finds More Black Holes than Expected in the Early Universe

4 min read

With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new…

Article1 month ago
A young woman holds a water bottle in front of a doorway with the words "Mission Operations Center" overhead.

How Students Learn to Fly NASA’s IXPE Spacecraft

5 min read

The large wall monitor displaying a countdown shows 17 seconds when Amelia “Mia” De Herrera-Schnering tells her teammates “We have AOS,” meaning “acquisition of signal.” “Copy that, thank you,” Alexander Pichler replies. The two are now in contact with NASA’s…

Article2 months ago