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NASA Finds Record-Breaking Black Hole Using ‘Cosmic Magnifying Glass’
Astronomers using two NASA space telescopes have found one of the farthest black holes from the solar system using a rare alignment of galaxies to act as a magnifying glass. Existing just 470 million years after the Big Bang—the event that’s thought to have created our universe 13.8 billion years ago—it’s the most distant black…
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NASA Telescopes Discover Record-Breaking Black Hole
Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays, using NASA telescopes. The black hole is at an early stage of growth that had never been witnessed before, where its mass is similar to that of its host galaxy. This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in…
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Yale astronomer leads the way to the oldest known X-ray quasar
Astronomers have found the oldest-known X-ray quasar in the universe — and its properties align exactly with predictions for a new class of distant objects made by Yale astronomer Priyamvada Natarajan and her research group. In a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy, Natarajan and colleagues from Harvard and Princeton identified a celestial object,…
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A Study Says the Mesozoic Era Is the Key to Finding the Elusive Second Earth in Space
When searching for exoplanets with potentially habitable atmospheres, astronomers really only have Earth as an example of what to look for. But a new study says that a past era of Earth may be a better indicator of complex life. Because of high concentrations of particular biosignatures, finding worlds similar to Earth during the Mesozoic…
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Saving open space and history in one Big Bang
by Alison Mitchell, Co-Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation “Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state; Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait; The Earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool …” If you’re a fan of the Big Bang Theory television series, you probably can sing the rest of the…
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Experience Mars in 3D
Mars is a dynamic world that continues to intrigue us. This image, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the planet wreathed in late-afternoon clouds. Credit: NASA & Allexxandar/Dreamstime Humans have long dreamt of flying to other worlds. Two destinations — the Moon and Mars — have consistently topped the wish list. Although we reached…
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15NH3 in the atmosphere of a cool brown dwarf
Abstract Brown dwarfs serve as ideal laboratories for studying the atmospheres of giant exoplanets on wide orbits as the governing physical and chemical processes in them are nearly identical1,2. Understanding the formation of gas giant planets is challenging, often involving the endeav our to link atmospheric abundance ratios, such as the carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio, to…
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Princeton astrophysicist helps find record-smashing black hole born in the universe’s infancy
An international team of astrophysicists including Princeton’s Andy Goulding has discovered the most distant supermassive black hole ever found, using two NASA space telescopes: the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Chandra) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The black hole, which is an estimated 10 to 100 million times more massive than our sun, is 13.2…
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The JWST Has Spotted Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Years before she was even sure the James Webb Space Telescope would successfully launch, Christina Eilers started planning a conference for astronomers specializing in the early universe. She knew that if—preferably, when—JWST started making observations, she and her colleagues would have a lot to talk…
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Space photo of the week: A radio ‘ring of fire’ shows a solar eclipse as never seen before
What it is: Radio images of an annular solar eclipse. When it was taken: Oct. 14, 2023. Where it was taken from: Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA), California. Why it’s so special: Scientists have taken the first radio telescope images of an annular solar eclipse’s famous “ring of fire” effect — even…