Scientists who study black holes can be sure that their field will deliver amazing findings year after year. There were many exciting new results regarding these strange beasts. This year's most captivating black hole discoveries and how they've advanced our understanding of the universe is what we are looking at.
The best black holes still surprise. Physicists revised their estimates of the properties of the monster in the center of the Cygnus X-1 system, which is also the first black hole ever confirmed to exist. The Cygnus X-1 black hole was found to be 50% more massive than previously thought, making it 21 times the sun's mass, and spinning very close to the speed of light, setting a new record for black hole rotation. The black hole in Cygnus X-1 is 7,200 light-years away and is slowly consuming a blue supergiant companion star, providing researchers with new insights into such processes.
Astronomers have found the fastest spinning black hole to date.
A Spaghettified star is seen.
When a star wanders too close to a black hole, it will be pulled apart into long strands that are sucked down the black hole's maw. This process, known as "spaghettification," produces light as the stellar material heats up, allowing the astronomer to capture the gruesome act in all its glory. In May, researchers for the first time spotted a star being shredded and devoured in this way by a black hole that was 30 million times the mass of the sun. The observations helped scientists create a visualization of the stellar ingestion.
The Hapless star wasspaghettified by a black hole. The gory show was captured by astronomer.
The simulation shows the waves that were created by two black holes. C. Henze/NASA Ames Research Center.
Researchers with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory watched two black holes spiral towards each other and created ripples in the fabric of 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556. The black hole's surface area was larger than the first two combined. The findings help prove a 1971 conjecture from Stephen Hawking known as the black hole area theorem. Einstein's theory of general relativity as well as his understanding of entropy were used to derive the law that it is impossible for the surface area of a black hole to decrease over time. The results left physicists scratching their heads. Black holes should shrink and evaporate according to quantum mechanics, but it's not clear how to square that with the law that their surface area must always increase.
Stephen Hawking's theory about black holes has been confirmed.
There is a black hole and a star.
LIGO had a lot of black hole findings to deliver in June, when they were confident that they'd seen black holes merging with compact entities called neutron stars. When a massive star dies, it leaves behind a remnant, and that remnant is called a neutron star. LIGO had previously seen hints of black hole-neutron star mergers, but they weren't proven until this year. In January 2020, there were two detections. The first involved a black hole with six times the sun's mass eating a star one and a half times the sun's mass, while the second involved a black hole with nine times the sun's mass and a star twice the size of the sun.
Scientists caught the first glimpse of a black hole swallowing a star.
A black hole blows a storm.
The artist created an illustration of a wind driven by a black hole. The black hole creates a huge flow of gas that blows away the material for stars. The image is from ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO).
There is a close relationship between the two entities, as almost every known galaxy has a black hole in its center. Scientists don't know how a black hole affects a host. A 13 billion-year-old galaxy was shown to have high-speed winds blowing from it. This is the earliest example of a burped out black hole burping out gas and dust. The powerful winds travel at 1.1 million mph, which means they can propel material all over the universe. This shows that the black holes and the galaxies have a very tight bond.
Scientists spot the earliest-known black hole storm.
Einstein is right about light echoes.
The black hole wins this year were racked up by other people, including Stephen Hawking. Astronomers captured X-rays from a black hole in the center of a spiral galaxy, which is 1.8 billion light-years away. The researchers were able to detect light coming from the front of the black hole, but also to find strange echoes of light that they initially couldn't place. The light was being pulled from one side of the black hole to the other because the giant entity was warping the fabric of space-time so much. This process is exactly what would be expected from Einstein's theory of general relativity but, until now, hadn't been found.
Light from behind a black hole for the first time, proving Einstein right.
Aliens could be using black hole power.
An illustration of a Dyson sphere. The image is courtesy of Stocktrek Images/Getty.
As long as their data is relevant, scientists are not above speculating. In August, a team of astronomy researchers in Taiwan suggested that aliens may be using Dyson spheres to encircle a star and harvest energy from black holes. Black holes give off large amounts of energy as they feed on surrounding material, which heats up and emits light, despite being thought of as dark. The astronomer wondered if an extraterrestrial species would place platforms around a black hole to absorb its blasts. Since black holes are smaller than stars, aliens could potentially save on construction materials and gather huge amounts of power.
Alien 'Dyson spheres' could be using black holes to harvest power.
Black holes might be in our universe.
10% of the universe's black hole mass could be made up by the rogue black holes. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library has this image.
There are 12 invisible black holes on the outskirts of the Milky Way. In August, researchers released results from a new simulation. Black holes weighing millions or billions of times that of the sun could fly because of the forces of gravity. The halos of our own galaxies are expected to host about 12 of these, with some of them eventually being settled in our own. Astronomers want to find out if their simulations are correct when searching for lost giants.
Black holes could be at the edges of the universe.
There are black hole couple spotted.
The image shows close-up and wide views of the two bright stars. The black hole is at the center of each nucleus. The image was taken by the team from the ESO/VST ATLAS team. The Durham University/CASU/WFAU has been acknowledged.
In December, telescopes captured evidence of a pair of black holes that were 89 million light-years away from Earth. The previous black hole pair is five times farther away than this one, meaning scientists have the chance to study such systems in greater detail. The larger member has a mass of almost 154 million suns, while the smaller has a mass of 6.3 million. They will merge into a giant black hole 250 million years from now, after they have separated by a mere 1,600 light-years.
This pair of merging black holes is the closest we have ever found.
A black hole is too big.
There is a black hole at the center of the dwarf galaxy. The image is from the ESA/ Gaia/DPAC.
A tiny galaxy is about 820,000 light-years away from us. The black hole in the dwarf galaxy is the same mass as the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers don't know how a large black hole can reside in a small galaxy. Mara José Bustamante, an astronomy graduate at the University of Texas, Austin, said there was no explanation for the black hole. It will take a while to figure out what this means for black hole and evolution.
There is a giant black hole inside a tiny satellite galaxy.
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