Black Hole Smashes Record

(NEWSER) - A monstrous black hole near the center of a distant galaxy is sucking up stars, gas and dust, and spitting out baby stars, NASA scientists have discovered. The black hole is 100 million times the mass of the sun, reports the Telegraph. It lies at the center of a galaxy 50 million light years away known as NGC-1097, and has been photographed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in California. More»

(NEWSER) - Researchers are reporting the biggest stellar explosion ever recorded—a discovery which could shed light on how the universe was shaped. The star, 150 times more massive than the sun, went out with a bang 100 times more powerful than typical supernovas. Astronomers think the first stars after the Big Bang, which were also gargantuan, met similar fates. More»

Americans independently made same discovery

(NEWSER) - The universe isn't just expanding, it's expanding faster every day. Three American scientists who made that discovery have won the Nobel Prize in Physics today for their efforts, the AP reports. The men were split between two competing research teams during the 1990s, with Saul Perlmutter on one and Adam Riess and US-Australian scientist Brian Schmidt on another. More»

Gamma ray burst took 13 billion years to reach Earth

(NEWSER) - Astronomers have detected a cosmic object more distant than any ever seen: a gamma ray burst about 13 billion light-years from Earth. The massive, luminous burst occurred about 600 million years after the Big Bang—that is, when the universe was 4% of its current age—and only lasted for about 12 seconds. Scientists say the ancient burst allows an unprecedented view into the earliest days of the universe. More»

15-mile-wide black hole is smallest ever found

(NEWSER) - Astronomers have spotted the smallest black hole ever discovered, Reuters reports. It is just 15 miles across—the size of a city—but still has a pull strong enough to "stretch your body into a strand of spaghetti," said a NASA researcher. The relative pipsqueak weighs about as much as four suns, while black holes often weigh billions of times more. More»