"Sgr A*, the 4.6-million-solar-mass black hole that lies at the
center of the Milky Way, is normally a fairly quiet beast. The
black hole slowly feeds on accreting material in the galactic
center — but this food source is sparse, and Sgr
A*’s...
Stargazers know all too well the challenges of observing the
night sky on a cloudy evening. Fortunately, waiting a night or two
can help to resolve the issue. But what happens if these clouds are
light years away and lie seemingly dormant in the...
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has announced the
recipients of its 2021 prizes for outstanding achievements in
research and education, among them several current and former
scholars in the IAS School of Natural Sciences.
It is well known that the expansion of the universe is
accelerating due to a mysterious dark energy. Within galaxies,
stars also experience an acceleration, though this is due to some
combination of dark matter and the stellar density. In a new...
"Within our galaxy, there are thousands of stars that orbit the
center of the Milky Way at high velocities. On occasion, some of
them pick up so much speed that they break free of our galaxy and
become intergalactic objects. Because of the extreme...
“The most spectacular element of the Penrose
calculations is that he showed that if you are close enough to a
black hole, time ends. It is the mirror image of the Big
Bang.”
—Robbert Dijkgraaf, IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor
(Wall
Street...
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what might the first
horizon-scale image of a black hole tell us? A new paper by
researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration,
which famously imaged M87’s central black hole, has provided
a...
