Black Holes

After 10 years of gravitational-wave research, the LIGO Lab team at MIT is getting ready for the next generation of detectors.

A U.S. gravitational wave detector spotted a collision between fast-spinning “forbidden” black holes that challenge physics models

After black holes devour stars, sometimes the feast comes back up

Some stars streaking through the Milky Way at millions of kilometers per hour probably trace back to a supermassive black hole in a neighboring galaxy

Researchers have shown that abstract mathematical functions from the frontiers of theoretical physics have a real-world use in modeling gravitational waves

Astronomical amounts of energy could be extracted from black holes—to build a gigantic bomb, for example. Experts have now implemented this principle in the laboratory

Physicists think the insides of black holes may be complex mazes of tangled strings in higher dimensions

The spins of some early galaxies could be a clue that the entire observable universe exists within a black hole—except, that is, for all the evidence to the contrary

Strange x-ray pulses hint at a surprisingly long-lived white dwarf orbiting precariously close to a supermassive black hole

The universe’s light-starved early epochs, as well as the first stars and galaxies, lie beyond the reach of conventional observatories but could be revealed by a new generation of radio telescope arrays

Supermassive black holes can expel jets of material so vast and powerful that they may shape the large-scale structure of the cosmos

The universe’s hidden mass may be made of black holes, which could wobble the planets of the solar system when they pass by