Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
There was no shortage of mind-bending new science about black holes this year, these are just 5 of our favourites.
Blast “Supermassive Black Hole” by English rock band Muse and enjoy!
Scientists take even crisper images of supermassive black holes
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration made the highest resolution black hole observations ever from the surface of Earth, capturing M87* and Sagittarius A* at the centres of the Messier 87 and Milky Way galaxies.
Black hole “starving” galaxy to death
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) identified a black hole that confirmed the theory that some supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel needed to make new stars.
Black holes are getting caught in “traffic jams”
The complex dynamics of black holes in the centres of galaxies, including how they slow down and interact with each other, were revealed in a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way discovered
The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission found a massive stellar black hole, named Gaia BH3, just 2,000 light years away in the constellation Aquila. It is 33 times the mass of our Sun, more than 50% bigger than the next biggest stellar black hole – Cygnus X-1.
First black hole triple system discovered
A black hole was discovered with two orbiting stars for the first time. One star orbits the black hole, V404 Cygni, every 6.5 days. The other orbits at a significantly greater distance and makes the same trip every 70,000 years.
