Image of the Day: 3D Video of the Cassiopeia A Supernova Explosion

Astronomers today believe that Cassiopeia A might have been a rare killer type 11 star -a core collapsed hypernova that generates deadly GRBs, gamma ray bursts that may leading astronomers and physicists believe may be resonsible for destroying much of existing life throughout the billions of galaxies that populate the universe.  While there is, on average, only one supernova per galaxy per century, there is something on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Taking 10 billion years for the age of the Universe (it’s actually 13.7 billion, but stars didn’t form for the first few hundred million), Dr.

The Biggest Black Hole in the Universe (It’s BIG!) – Weekend Feature

Scientists have determined the mass of the largest things that could possibly exist in our universe.  New results have placed an upper limit on the current size of black holes – and at fifty billion suns it’s pretty damn big.  That’s a hundred thousand tredagrams, and you’ll never get the chance to use that word in relation to anything else. Black holes are regions of space where matter is so dense that regular physics just breaks down.  You might think physical laws are immutable – you can’t get out of gravitational attraction the same way you can get out of a speeding ticket – but beyond a certain level laws which determine how matter is regulated are simply overloaded and material is crushed down into something that’s less an object and more a region of altered space

Giant 13-Billion-Year-Old Galaxy Found at Very Edge of Universe -A Daily Galaxy Top 2009 Post

Scientists have located a giant 13-billion year old galaxy at the edge of the observable universe.  Detecting this huge galaxy  was a challenge because of the massive quantities of light coming from the black hole, and if you think you spotted two problems in that sentence, read on. The galaxy, which is 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as does our Sun. “It is surprising that such a giant galaxy existed when the universe was only one-sixteenth of its present age, and that it hosted a black hole one billion times more massive than the sun

Image of the Day: A White Dwarf Swallowed by a Supermassive Black Hole

“We think these unusual signatures can be explained by a white dwarf that strayed too close to a black hole and was torn apart by the extreme tidal forces.” Joel Bregman of the University of Michigan.

Does the Universe Exist in a Black Hole?

Some of the world’s leading string theorists -”the theory of everything”- believe that our entire universe exists in a black hole. In this bizarre view, the pre Big-Bang universe is vast, infinite, and stretching back indefinitely in time.

Does Our Universe Exist in a Black Hole?

Some of the world's leading string theorists -”the theory of everything”- believe that our entire universe exists in a black hole. In this bizarre view, the pre Big-Bang universe is vast, infinite, and stretching back indefinitely in time. Meanwhile, scientists at Princeton and Cambridge say that most of the universe is regularly destroyed.  It's space-time-twisted into black holes, in fact, which is about as utterly destroyed as you can get without pissing off Zeus.  In each destruction cycle only a small seed of habitable space survives, which grows phoenix-like to provide a new universe due to the apparently all-powerful dark matter

Huge Galaxy Discovered Surrounding the Most Distant Black Hole Ever (A Holiday Classic)

Scientists have spotted a giant galaxy at the edge of the observable universe.  Detecting this huge galaxy (the same size as the Milky Way) was a challenge because of the massive quantities of light coming from the black hole, and if you think you spotted two problems in that sentence, read on. The galaxy, which is 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as does our Sun “It is surprising that such a giant galaxy existed when the universe was only one-sixteenth of its present age, and that it hosted a black hole one billion times more massive than the sun. The galaxy and black hole must have formed very rapidly in the early universe,” said University of Hawaii astronomer Dr

Giant 13-Billion-Year-Old Galaxy Found at Very Edge of Universe

Scientists have located a giant 13-billion year old galaxy at the edge of the observable universe.  Detecting this huge galaxy  was a challenge because of the massive quantities of light coming from the black hole, and if you think you spotted two problems in that sentence, read on. The galaxy, which is 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as does our Sun. “It is surprising that such a giant galaxy existed when the universe was only one-sixteenth of its present age, and that it hosted a black hole one billion times more massive than the sun.

Massive "Dark Halo" Discovered Beyond Edge of the Milky Way

The biggest things in the universe just got bigger – or rather, they’ve always been bigger and we somehow missed it up to now.  Supercomputer simulations of galactic core black holes indicate that instead of being a mere two billion times the mass of the sun, so insignificant you’d surely lose them if you sneezed, some could be as large as six billion suns -not including the “dark halo” that surrounds the Milky Way,  which is more than ten times as much mass as all of the visible stars, gas, and dust in the rest of the galaxy.

Guide to Surviving the "LHC-Restart" -The Search Continues…

ovember 25, 200   The Large Hadron Collider is spooling back up to science-speeds, circulating particle beams last week and looking at ramping up the power to productive levels even now, and you know what that means?  No, not particle physics, or an increases in human knowledge, or even pieces of a new understanding of how the universe operates – it’s time for the more vapid scaremongering!  Which is why we’re lucky we’ve got Gizmodo to give such a perfect example! Their  November 20 post  couldn’t be a better example of everything wrong with modern reporting if it was actually going “duh” and slapping itself on the forehead. It’s a manual of merit-free mockery, following all the steps of: a)  Single quote deliberately taken out of context b)  Overlong “amusing” title for someone so much smarter than they writer they’d probably need an interpreter should the two ever meet c)  Series of sarcastic questions without any analysis or actual content d)  Starting a paragraph with “Wait wait wait