Falling into a black hole never sounded like fun. How could it? Black holes are the darkest places in the universe, where not even light can escape the singularity’s immense gravitational pull. It wouldn’t be fun. But what, exactly, would happen?
     |
On the other side of the universe, a supermassive black hole is devouring enormous quantities of matter and spewing material in a jet that’s 150 light years long. One scientist identifies the situation as "black hole indigestion," and boy, is it pretty.
| |
Nothing is ever as tranquil as it seems. This image is pretty and has lots of fun, trippy colors. But all of that variation is being produced by gas, dust and other matter as whole galaxies fall into a supermassive black hole. Created from Hubble data, the image shows the cosmic tug-of-war going on in the Perseus Cluster of Galaxies 230 million light years away.
| |
NASA and the ESA have teamed up to measure how fast a black hole, that weighs 2 million times more than our sun, spins—and the result’s mind boggling. More »
Scientists have detected millions of previously hidden supermassive black holes surrounding us, some of them busily eating a thousand of newly discovered “extremely bright and extremely rare” galaxies called hot DOGs (Dust-Obscured Galaxies). Astronomy is fun! More »
The stargazers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have released a huge three-dimensional map of outer space, a core part of its six-year survey of the skies. Encompassing four billion light-years cubed, the researchers hope to use the map to retrace the movements of the universe through the last six billion years. Using the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), the center says the data will help improve their estimates for the quantity of dark matter in space and the effect that dark energy has on the universe’s expansion, “two of the greatest mysteries of our time” — if you’re an astrophysicist. Even if you’re not, you’ll still want to board the animated flight through over 400,000 charted galaxies — it’s embedded after the break.
Filed under: Science
Scientists release biggest ever 3D map of the universe, lacks turn-by-turn navigation (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
PC World | 
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | Email this | Comments
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
