Philip Plait's Blog, page 14

Is dark matter made of black holes born at the dawn of time?

Astronomers face a number of annoying problems we have with the Universe, and one of the biggest is dark matter.

At year's end, a spectacular spiral galaxy reminder that science improves upon itself

We understand something about the Universe.

I know that sounds mundane, but it is truly one of the most profound statements we can make. A rock knows nothing of the cosmos, and while many species on this planet are intelligent and aware of both their surroundings and themselves, I think it's safe to say that they don't ponder the greater Universe around them.

But we do.

If you're a comet, it's not easy being green. Now we know why.

It's not easy bein' green
It seems you blend in
With so many other ordinary things
And people tend to pass you over
Cause you're not standing out
Like flashy sparkles in the water
Or stars in the sky

— Kermit the Frog

I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with my amphibious friend above.

Looking for bright black holes — 750,000 galaxies at a time

A weird problem astronomers have is finding monster black holes.

It's a common misconception that black holes are nature's ultimate garbage compactors. Toss something in, and it's gone. Bloop! But that's not always the case.

Two monster black holes roar, carve out enormous cavities around them

I recently wrote about the possibility that two huge black holes collided and merged in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, sowing chaos. As you might expect, though, they need not collide to be trouble. They're supermassive black holes. Trouble is everywhere they are.

What might surprise you, though, is just how they can create discord. And this one I love: They're monsters. They roar.

The last spring of the dinosaurs

Sixty-six million years ago, the dinosaurs had a really bad day.

Not just them, either, since 75% of the species on Earth disappeared in a short time. There’s no doubt now that the main driver of this mass murder, called the K-Pg extinction event, was an enormous asteroid (or possibly comet) impact, an object 10 kilometers across that slammed into the planet just off the coast of modern-day Yucatan. This created a crater some 150 kilometers wide, and instigated a series of catastrophic events b...

A colossal collision between supermassive black holes may explain Andromeda’s weird core

Something really weird is going on in our galactic neighbor’s core.

Binary pulsar puts Einstein to the test… and he passes. Relatively speaking.

There are places in the Universe where the laws of physics are pushed to their limits –– where temperatures, densities, energy, motion, and gravity are so extreme they read like an astrophysicist’s fever dream and sound like a science fiction plot device to everyone else.

But then, binary pulsars do actually exist.

Amazing new images show stars flung around by the Milky Way's enormous central black hole

Astronomers have incredible new images of the stars flying past our Milky Way galaxy's central supermassive black hole, using them to get the most accurate assessment of its mass: a whopping 4.3 million times that of the Sun.

Another day, another asteroid that won't hit us: Nereus will miss Earth tomorrow

Over the weekend, an asteroid bigger than the Eiffel Tower will not be impacting the Earth.

I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Mind you, this is not the news you'd see if you've checked social media this week or read any number of fish-wrappery sites that have breathlessly exclaimed that an asteroid "larger than the Eiffel tower" will "break Earth's orbit", whatever that last bit means.

I even saw one TikTokker start off a video saying, "An asteroid might be hitting Earth on December 11." He has si...