Could Mysterious Black Hole Burps Rewrite Physics?

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) like this one occur when a black hole’s gravity pulls on a star so violently that the less massive ball of gas is stretched, shredded, and swirled around the black ...

He and more than 100 co-authors from around the world investigated what's called an active galactic nucleus, which includes a supermassive black hole and its extreme surroundings.

But considering that this object, if it does exist, causes only tiny irregularities in the solar system's planets, a primordial black hole far out in the solar system wouldn't have very big ...

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to find evidence of an elusive kind of black hole, one that's about 8,000 times more massive than our sun.

More information: Andrew Mummery et al, Continuum emission from within the plunging region of black hole discs, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024).

Theorists consider a black hole’s plunging region to be where the fate of all things falling in becomes sealed. Yet beyond that basic insight, this area has remained a near total mystery.

This study gives the first observational proof that a “plunging region” exists around black holes. Moreover, this region exerts some of the most vital gravitational forces yet identified in the galaxy ...

The observation of this plunging region around black holes was made by astrophysicists at Oxford University Physics, and helps validate a key prediction of Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of gravity ...

After that, they needed observational evidence that contained the same plunging region emission. The black hole in question is found in a system about 10,000 light-years away called MAXI J1820+070.

The first photo of a black hole, captured in 2019, had previously strengthened the revolutionary physicist’s core assumption that gravity is just matter bending the space-time fabric.