News — "Finding your stars" collection

Question #1: If black holes are "black," how do scientists know that they are there?  Well, as a general rule, a black hole cannot be seen because of the strong gravity that is pulling all of the light into the black hole's center.   However, scientists can see the effects of its strong gravity on the stars and gases around it.  If a star is orbiting a certain point in space, scientists can study the star's motion to find out if it is orbiting a black hole. When a black hole and a star are orbiting close together, high-energy light...

“Dark stars” is an "older" and much established name for what is today known as black holes (the term “black hole” was first reported at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in January 1964). There is a reason why it’s "black" and very difficult to see: no light can escape from it! Even if a bright star is shining right next to a black hole, you cannot see the black hole. Instead of reflecting the light as other objects do, the black hole just swallows the starlight forever.  Any matter that gets too close to a black...

We have been so excited about this momentous event achieved on 10th April 2019 that we traversed the web (universe) for the most beautiful GIFs on black holes … here are 3 of our favourites … followed by 3 fun and funny ones, each with a poetic name we created (brownie points for working out which of these is a play on a musical and which other is a play on a literary work).  Ligo, ligo, ligo - this was created from the image by LIGO of humanity's first "hearing" of 2 black holes colliding, in September 2015. I am...