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Science and reason is all about... science and reason. News and explanations of recent developments in the most intriguing branches of science. Philosophical and political issues of relevance are also discussed.

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Recent Posts Tagged With 'black holes'

  • Intermediate mass black holes

    Posted on Saturday July 4th, 2009 at 22:52 in black holes, astrophysics and cosmology

    Black holes are controversial. (Just browse reader comments from partisans of various sorts of "alternative" astrophysical theories – which can be found at the end of many articles dealing with black holes that allow commenting by the general p...

  • Galactic black holes may be more massive than thought

    Posted on Monday June 8th, 2009 at 21:24 in black holes

    Who would have imagined that a black hole could be more massive than a thought? (Of course, the headline merely exemplifies the clichéd thinking habits of the unfortunate people who have to write headlines.)But anyhow, it's an interesting stor...

  • Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus A

    Posted on Saturday February 7th, 2009 at 01:30 in black holes

    Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus AThis image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power. Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) ...

  • Which came first - the galaxy or the black hole?

    Posted on Sunday February 1st, 2009 at 20:54 in black holes, galaxies, galaxy formation

    This news isn't exactly fresh, having been announced several weeks ago, and it's been reported in many places. However, it's quite important (if correct), because it suggests that the supermassive black holes that seem to exist at the centers of most...

  • Mystery deepens over origin of biggest black holes

    Posted on Sunday June 15th, 2008 at 19:39 in cosmology, black holes

    Mysteries are popular, so here's a good one, about another popular subject, black holes.Mystery deepens over origin of biggest black holes (5/19/08)Where did the universe's biggest black holes come from? One idea suggests the behemoths began as small...

  • GLAST and gamma-ray astronomy

    Posted on Sunday June 1st, 2008 at 03:51 in astronomy, black holes, dark matter, supernovae, astrophysics, cosmic rays, gamma-ray bursts, gamma-ray astronomy

    According to the present schedule, the GLAST gamma-ray telescope mission will be launched next week, on June 5, around noon EDT. If you're reading this before then, you can expect to find quite a bit of news coverage around that date. It's actually k...

  • Black holes exist

    Posted on Saturday May 3rd, 2008 at 18:47 in black holes, general relativity

    It may come as a surprise to lay readers to learn that even as recently as 10 years ago there were prominent physicists who still doubted the existence of black holes.For example, there's Sir John Maddox, a trained chemist and physicist who was edito...

  • Spitzer Sees Shining Stellar Sphere

    Posted on Sunday April 20th, 2008 at 03:23 in black holes, galaxies

    Spitzer Sees Shining Stellar SphereMillions of clustered stars glisten like an iridescent opal in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.Called Omega Centauri, this sparkling orb of stars is like a miniature galaxy. It is the biggest and bri...