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more about #blackholes Bootknife-Jackson: wasn't this image the begining of a TNG episode...? more » phoenix: I don't know if recent observations back it up, but when I was studying astrophysics we were taught that the bulk of star systems were binaries in som... more » Scot Taylor: What, Spock got sloppy with the "red matter" again? more » ManchuCandidate: Lt. Kif Kroker: This is a pleasure cruise. Our path is decided by the travel agency. Captain Zapp Brannigan: That's for schoolgirls. Now here's a cour... more » crashedpc - Haifisch: Good gods, it's like someone flushed a giant toilet. more » icy_one: According to astrophysicist and hottie Samantha Carter, the combination of a star and a blackhole results in a massive explosion capable of obliterati... more » Daveinva: "If one of these quark stars encounters other forms of matter, it could rearrange that matter to resemble itself." Well, now we know where this thing... more » Starwatcher: OMG, this sounds like the plot of a bad 1970s sci-fi film. Disney Presents QUARK STAR Synopsis: Dr. Zoltan Kovaks will stop at nothing to find a the... more » designguybrown: I am just glad to have been alive to see the phrase: "... Might Be Able to Warp Matter Unto Themselves..." and look forward to seeing it used in the n... more » Hamslicer: Sure wouldn't want to bump into this and get assimilated into "strange matter". Sounds messy. more » Roklimber: Perhaps a little explanation about what neutron stars are and under what circumstances they could be crushed into quark stars might be helpful to inte... more » James Countryman: Zoltan Kovacs. That's a mad doctor name if I ever heard it. more » FrankenPC: This is what I love about our universe. It's far more fantastical than anything religion can say about it. I love reality. more » Dr Emilio Lizardo: Where does Zoltan find time to get away from his fortunetelling business to do Astrophysics? more » Roklimber: If you're interested in learning something about black holes in general and super-massive BHs in particular, and if you can stomach her annoying w... more » FrankenPC: What's even stranger is the possibility of neutron life on a white dwarf star. (read Dragon Egg) more » cletar: As an archaeologist, I would like to point out that physicists might know a lot about accretion disks, but they know jackity-poo about how civilizatio... more » reddingofish: Trantor in the Foundation novels is near the center of the galaxy. more » Brian Fowler: Is it so wrong that I want this to be correct, or at least close? more » KingKongBlues: I am currently reading Gregory Benford's science fiction novel "Furious Gulf" and he has incorporated this idea in his story. more » -
#spaceporn
When Stars Orbit Black Holes
A star, no bigger than our own sun, orbits a black hole, and every once in a while they get so close, the black hole starts siphoning off pieces of the star — creating an explosive particle blast. More » -
#darkmatter
Theoretical All-Quark Stars Might Be Able to Warp Matter Unto Themselves
Researchers are on the lookout for a new type of star, one composed of matter that behaves differently from the kind we're familiar with. If these stars exist, they could solve one of the biggest mysteries astrophysicists have confronted. More » -
#megaengineering
The Wild Center Of Our Galaxy Could Support A Mega-Civilization
Could a super-advanced civilization live inside the acretion disk, the super-dense area around the black hole at the center of a galaxy? Author Mike Brotherton has played with this idea, and a couple of scientific papers say it's possible. More » -
#madscience
A Black Hole Engine That Could Power Spaceships
Artificially generated black holes could provide us with the power to make inter-solar travel a possibility. New research shows how strapping a black hole to your starship might just give you the juice to get to Alpha Centauri.
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#spaceporn
Two Black Holes Enter, One Black Hole Leaves!
The meeting of two black holes in the galaxy NGC 6240 started 30 million years ago, but the ending was known from the beginning: in the end, there can only be one super-massive black hole. [Chandra Observatory] -
#spaceporn
The Center Of The Milky Way Galaxy Shows The Birth And Death Of Suns
The center of our galaxy shines in greater detail than ever before, in this new composite image from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. (Click to enlarge.) The whole gamut of stellar evolution is here, from bright young stars to black holes. More » -
#blackholes
Newly Discovered Black Hole Is Uniquely Average
Astronomers have discovered a black hole unlike any other previously discovered. Neither big enough to be a supermassive black hole, nor small enough to be the remnants of a collapsed star, its "average" size is a cosmic mystery. More » -
#spaceporn
What Makes Young Galaxies Stop Growing?
Eventually a galaxy has to grow up and settle down, and stop throwing superheated gas around all over the place. And now astrophysicists have figured out how the glowing "superblobs" around galaxies help to make this happen. More » -
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#blackholes
What Would a Black Hole Really Look Like?
Black holes are mysterious cosmic structures partly because they radiate in regions of the spectrum invisible to the human eye. But artists still strive to depict their violent, intense lives. We've got a gallery. More » -
#spaceporn
Stars Flare Into Life Around A Massive Black Hole
Omega Centauri is one of the biggest star clusters orbiting our own galaxy, with the light of millions of stars blazing from it — including some visible with the naked eye. But those stars aren't all the same age, as this new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope shows. Combining visible and infrared images, this new composite shows a mixture of ancient stars (which are red) and younger stars, like our own sun (which are blue). And click through for new evidence that all those stars may be circling a massive black hole at Omega Centauri's core. More »
