An artist’s impression of an accretion disk rotating around an unseen supermassive black hole. The accretion process produces random fluctuations in luminosity from the disk over time, a pattern found ...

Black holes keep their secrets close. They imprison forever anything that enters. Light itself can’t escape a black hole’s hungry pull. It would seem, then, that a black hole should be invisible—and ...

In this artist's rendering, a thick accretion disk has formed around a supermassive black hole following the tidal disruption of a star that wandered too close. Stellar debris has fallen toward the ...

Quasars initially confused astronomers when they were discovered. First identified as sources of radio-frequency radiation, later observations showed that the objects had optical counterparts that ...

At the center of our galaxy lurks a dark, beating heart: Sagittarius A*, a black hole some four million times more massive than our sun. We cannot see this fearsome object directly—only its shadow, a ...

NASA has released a stunning new video and images visualizing the distortion you would see if you observed two black holes, and their visible accretion disks, orbiting each other. The visualization ...

The first image of our Galaxy’s supermassive black hole, released earlier this month, has already begun to explain some enduring mysteries about the heart of the Milky Way. The wealth of new ...

Black holes are, by definition, places where gravity is so strong, not even light can escape. So, they’re black — dark — and impossible to image. Right? Why is there a disk at all? Can’t all the ...

A massive international collaboration of researchers has released the first-ever direct image of the hellish environment surrounding a supermassive black hole. As part of the Event Horizon Telescope ...

Spin transfer Artist’s impression of an accretion disc surrounding a black hole. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/oorka) Researchers in France have created a new experiment that could improve our understanding ...

The Milky Way’s black hole, Sagittarius A* Abhishek Joshi / UIUC Black holes keep their secrets close. They imprison forever anything that enters. Light itself can’t escape a black hole’s hungry pull.