The cosmic enigma created by evidence of seemingly massive black holes in the very early universe continues to deepen. JWST observations of one such anomaly, known as J1120+0641, show that the once-favored explanation for how these objects could emit so much light so quickly after the Big Bang is unlikely, forcing astronomers to try again. … Read more
A bright quasar, powered by a supermassive black hole, is blasting radiation that blows away clouds of gas in its surroundings to generate winds that reach speeds of about 36 million miles per hour (58 million kilometers per hour). Oh, and the quasar is also almost as old as the universe itself. The discovery, made … Read more
Astronomers are witnessing a spectacle never before seen in the cosmos: the awakening of a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. In late 2019, a team of astronomers spotted an unusual galaxy called SDSS1335+0728, 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. A sudden bump in the galaxy’s brightness was automatically … Read more
Low Earth orbit, a layer of the highway that wraps around Earth’s thermosphere some 200 to 600 miles above our heads, is newly congested. However, no one knows how the large increase in satellites orbiting the Earth will affect the atmosphere and therefore life below. With the rush to send up more and more satellites, … Read more