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For centuries, most scientists have shared the belief that light behaves as both a wave and a particle. This idea, then, became the central component to quantum theory, sprouting the field of science known as quantum mechanics. The double-slit experiment supported the idea, showing bright and dark bands that indicated wave-like interference. But now, a new study suggests that this experiment might not lock us into seeing light as a wave. According to the experts, we can interpret those interference bands using quantum particles alone. The research was led by Gerhard Rempe, the director of the Max Planck Institute for...

CREDIT: NASA, ESA, STScI, Yuhan Yao (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) ************************************************************** A traveling black hole stalking the cosmos for stellar prey recently revealed itself to NASA telescopes in a tidal disruption event (TDE), shredding and swallowing a star in a radioactive burst. With its brilliant flash, the TDE AT2024tvd lit up several observatories, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the NRAO Very Large Array. The TDE event took place 600 million light-years from Earth, allowing astronomers a new glimpse at black hole physics to be published in a future issue of The Astrophysical Journal...

In a landmark discovery, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a solitary stellar-mass black hole—an object with immense gravity, yet no visible companion, quietly roaming the depths of the Milky Way galaxy. Identified in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation, this black hole is believed to be around seven times more massive than our Sun and marks the first confirmed detection of a black hole not bound to another star. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal and led by Kailash C. Sahu and colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute, relied on more than a decade of high-precision data...

This artist’s impression illustrates the mechanism that could be at the origin of the powerful bursts of X-ray light seen from a newly awakened black hole named Ansky. Credit: ESA A mysterious black hole in a distant galaxy just woke up after decades of silence—and it’s putting on a cosmic light show! **************************************************************************** ESA’s XMM-Newton and other X-ray telescopes are capturing massive bursts of energy known as quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs) that defy current theories. Unlike anything seen before, these powerful flashes may be rewriting the rulebook on how black holes behave, evolve, and interact with their surroundings. XMM-Newton Observes Rare...

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 4941. This Hubble image shows NGC 4941, a spiral galaxy some 67 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. The color image is composed of near-infrared, optical and ultraviolet observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Six filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker. ================================================================== NGC 4941 is located approximately 67 million light-years away...

Dark energy, a mysterious force that scientists believe is behind the accelerated expansion of the universe, is weakening — which could result in the universe over the course of billions of years collapsing on itself, according to new research. An international group of more than 900 researchers studying the expansion of the universe presented their findings on Wednesday during the American Physical Society's Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, Calif. The scientists, who are collaborating on something called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) are studying the history of the universe's expansion out to 11 billion years in the past. They...

Galaxies observed by the JWST with those rotating one way circled in red, those rotating the other wat circled in blue (Image credit: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2025)) ==================================================================================== Without a doubt, since its launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revolutionized our view of the early universe, but its new findings could put astronomers in a spin. In fact, it could tell us something profound about the birth of the universe by possibly hinting that everything we see around us is sealed within a black hole. The $10 billion telescope, which began observing the cosmos...

A radical new theory suggests that black holes could transition into white holes, creating a location in space where time begins by ejecting material back into the cosmos. The theory also suggests a quantum mechanics link between black and white holes, including an aspect of enigmatic dark matter. The research team behind the new theory believes their work could represent a critical step toward reconciling quantum mechanics and gravity, potentially leading to new theories about the universe’s very nature. Black Holes (and White Holes) Have Long Fascinated Scientists First proposed by Albert Einstein, black holes have long fascinated scientists. Still,...

A supersolid is a paradox of physics — a material that is both solid and liquid at the same time. This contradictory form of matter was first proposed more than 60 years ago, and, for a long time, people thought it was too nuts to actually exist. But we’re talking about the realm of quantum mechanics, and normal expectations should be thrown out the window. In 2007, researchers at ETH Zurich and MIT unveiled the world’s first supersolids, starting with superflooding sodium and rubidium, respectively. Now, an international team of researchers has unveiled an entirely new route to supersolidity, harnessing...

Artist’s impression of the bright, very early active galactic nucleus that was found by Bañados and his colleagues, which has fundamental implications for black hole growth in the earliest billion or so years of cosmic history. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/B. Saxton ======================================================================================= Astronomers have spotted a young, blazing black hole that was already growing at a furious pace just one billion years after the Big Bang. This rare discovery provides a key to understanding how supermassive black holes formed in the universe’s earliest days. Astronomers have identified a crucial clue in understanding how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the...

Does the light scatter that black holes produce mean there are actually fewer objects than we are seeing in the night skies? Thank you.

"Our measurements imply that the supermassive black hole mass is 10% of the stellar mass in the galaxies we studied." Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered distant, overly massive supermassive black holes in the early universe. The black holes seem way too massive compared to the mass of the stars in the galaxies that host them. In the modern universe, for galaxies close to our own Milky Way, supermassive black holes tend to have masses equal to around 0.01% of the stellar mass of their host galaxy. Thus, for every 10,000 solar masses attributed to stars...

A groundbreaking reanalysis of the M87 galaxy’s supermassive black hole, M87*, unveils intriguing new insights into the structure and behavior of its plasma environment. Credit: EHT collaboration First Step on the Way to a Video of the Black Hole In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration made history by releasing the first-ever image of a black hole—M87*, located at the center of the galaxy M87. This groundbreaking image was based on data collected in 2017. Now, the EHT team has analyzed additional data from their 2018 observations, revealing new findings. The latest analysis shows that the brightest part of...

Astronomers have, for the first time, watched the moment a feeding supermassive black hole at the heart of a distant galaxy spat out a jet of material at one-third of the speed of light. Plus, the structure is technically made up of two jets, each about half a light-year across. The black hole in question, which has a mass around 1.4 billion times that of the sun, is located at the heart of a galaxy designated 1ES 1927+654. It's located about 270 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. "The launch of a black hole jet has never been observed...

The Hubble tension grows: new data shows the Universe’s expansion defies current physics models, suggesting our understanding of cosmology may need a major overhaul. Credit: SciTechDaily.com New research confirms the Universe is expanding faster than theoretical models predict, intensifying the Hubble tension. Using precise measurements of the Coma cluster, scientists recalibrated the cosmic distance ladder, suggesting flaws in existing cosmological models. Expanding Universe: A Startling Discovery The Universe appears to be expanding faster than expected — faster than theoretical models predict and beyond what our current understanding of physics can explain. New measurements have confirmed earlier, highly debated results showing...

The James Webb Space Telescope has found evidence of large, bright galaxies in the early universe, challenging traditional dark matter theories and suggesting a rapid galactic formation as predicted by MOND. Credit: SciTechDaily.com New findings from the James Webb Space Telescope contradict traditional theories about early galaxy formation, revealing large and bright galaxies instead of the expected small, dim structures. This observation supports the Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory, which disputes the role of dark matter and suggests a rapid formation of galaxies in the early universe, presenting a challenge to the widely accepted dark matter hypothesis. Challenging Conventional Galaxy...

Dark matter could be the result of fermions pushed into a warped fifth dimension. This theory builds on an idea first stated in 1999, but is unique in its findings. Dark matter makes up 75 percent of matter but has never been observed ... yet. Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension. While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, this research, published in The European Physical Journal C, is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the...

The M87 Galaxy, as seen via the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/Hubble). For the first time in a decade, the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy has erupted in an enormous gamma-ray flare, a rare and significant event that defied expectations in the latest analysis by astrophysicists. Several large collaborations, including the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), as well as the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, and the MAGIC, VERITAS, HESS, and EAVN telescopes pooled their resources to observe the massive cosmic event, detailed in a new paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. M87 Black Hole Messier 87 is...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope to peer back in time into the farthest reaches of the universe have found stunning evidence for an alternate theory of gravity. Current models of galaxy formation in the early cosmos predict the presence of excess gravity caused by dark matter to pull material into slowly forming galaxies. However, an alternate theory of gravity first proposed in 1998 called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) suggests that structures in the early universe formed very quickly without the need for theoretical dark matter. Now, researchers from Case Western Reserve University say that scans of ancient galaxies...

Explanation: How far can black hole jets extend? A new record was found just recently with the discovery of a 23-million light-year long jet pair from a black hole active billions of years ago. Dubbed Porphyrion for a mythological Greek giant, the impressive jets were created by a type of black hole that does not usually create long jets -- one that is busy creating radiation from infalling gas. The featured animated video depicts what it might look like to circle around this powerful black hole system. Porphyrion is shown as a fast stream of energetic particles, and the bright...