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Researchers led by Francesco Sannino of the University of Naples Federico II published a study in Physical Review D examining whether a black hole can divide into two separate black holes. They found that if a black hole spins at the maximum physically possible rate, its event horizon can form a pants-shaped structure in spacetime, producing two distinct black holes without violating the laws of thermodynamics.
A new scientific analysis finds that even extremely massive primordial black holes cannot account for the universe's dark matter. Researchers examined the theory that dark matter could consist of black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang and concluded the evidence does not support it as an explanation.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, in orbit for nearly 22 years, is set to re-enter Earth's atmosphere around November 2 after a July mission to raise its altitude spun out of control before reaching the spacecraft. NASA has already shut down Swift's science operations because it drifted too low to lock onto astronomical targets, and most of the craft is expected to burn up, with any surviving debris likely landing in the ocean.
Two astronomy teams using the James Webb Space Telescope reported in spring 2025 that they observed a pair of 'little red dots' unlike any previously seen objects, including other little red dots found since 2023. Researchers led by Anna de Graaff at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy propose these are a new kind of object: a vast, puffed-up cloud of hydrogen gas that shines as brightly as billions of suns while concealing a supermassive black hole at its center, which they call a 'black hole star.'
Graham Farmelo's book 'Hawking: His Life and Work' (John Murray, 2026) chronicles the physicist's scientific achievements alongside his personal struggles, including his motor neuron disease diagnosis, two marriages ending, and his relationships with students and colleagues. The review, written by a physicist who was a close friend of Hawking's from 1996 while working together at the University of Cambridge, praises the book's research and readability.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified a widespread class of compact, reddish objects dating to the universe's first billion years, dubbed 'little red dots.' Researchers say these objects have puzzled the field since their discovery, and new analysis is now offering possible explanations for what they are.
A new Nature study led by Max Planck Institute astrophysicist Sunmyon Chon simulated conditions in the early universe and found that rapidly forming black holes can generate light signatures matching the mysterious 'little red dots' seen by the James Webb Space Telescope. The team argues these objects quickly develop dense, thick gas disks that produce a strong hydrogen-alpha glow resembling what's observed in these ancient regions of space.
Astronomers analyzing James Webb Space Telescope data have identified an unusual celestial object that some researchers believe could be a so-called 'black hole star,' a rare hybrid where a black hole is enshrouded in thick gas that mimics stellar light. The classification remains tentative, with further observation needed to confirm whether the object fits this proposed new category.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope had largely concluded that mysterious compact objects called 'little red dots' were supermassive black holes obscured by dust. But two newly analyzed dots studied by teams led by de Graaff and Naidu show a distinctive Balmer break—a spectral signature usually associated with hot stellar surfaces—that standard black hole models don't produce, complicating the picture.
Researchers built a high-resolution dark-matter N-body simulation, seeded with Planck cosmological parameters, tracking halo mergers from redshift 35 to 7.5 using ROCKSTAR and CONSISTENT-TREES tools. They layered a semi-analytic galaxy-formation model onto this framework to simulate gas cooling, star formation, supernova feedback and radiation, showing that overmassive black holes and compact 'little red dot' galaxies emerge naturally from these early-universe conditions without requiring exotic physics.
An essay compares the universe to a massive, minified software file with no comments or source history, arguing that physicists effectively act as reverse engineers probing a running system they cannot inspect directly. It traces how Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein each uncovered hidden unifying rules beneath seemingly separate phenomena, and notes that quantum mechanics then complicated the picture by making particles behave differently depending on how they are observed.
Researchers led by Foschi and colleagues, publishing in Nature, developed an artificial-intelligence algorithm called kine that reconstructs continuous, movie-like views of relativistic plasma jets from black holes using sparse observational data. These jets, which blast material at over 98% of the speed of light, have historically been studied only through isolated snapshots, making it hard to trace their evolution over time.