In The News: College of Sciences
Milky Way’s supermassive black hole has a mysterious past, and scientists have found some evidence to explain its behaviour. The supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is located 26,000 light-years away from Earth in the center of our galaxy.
Astronomers studying the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole have found “compelling evidence” that could finally help explain its mysterious past. Located 26,000 light-years away in the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A* is a gargantuan tear in space-time that is 4 million times the mass of our sun and 14.6 million miles (23.5 million kilometers) wide.
While digging for garden soil, a Las Vegas farmer was shocked to find mammoth teeth, but now the rest of his discoveries are expected to cause a controversy as it may change 12,000 years of history. During a Protectors of Tule Springs meeting Tuesday night, Dr. Steve Rowland, a UNLV geoscience professor and paleontologist, helped present newly analyzed findings from a 30-year-old archeological dig field report from the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary.
Large galaxies like ours are hosts to Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs.) They can be so massive that they resist comprehension, with some of them having billions of times more mass than the Sun. Ours, named Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is a little more modest at about four million solar masses.
Astronomers studying the Milky Way's supermassive black hole have found "compelling evidence" that could finally help explain its mysterious past. Located 26,000 light-years away in the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A* is a gargantuan tear in space-time that is 4 million times the mass of our sun and 14.6 million miles (23.5 million kilometers) wide.
The mystery of how supermassive black holes, which can be millions of times more massive than the sun and sit at the heart of most galaxies, came to exist is one of the great questions in astrophysics.
One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is the formation of the appropriately termed supermassive black holes, which can weigh up to a million times the mass of the sun and are found in the center of most galaxies.
The giant black hole at the center of our galaxy has an unexpected spin, which is likely to be the result of a merger with another large black hole. The merger almost certainly occurred with the smaller, but still technically supermassive, black hole at the heart of a galaxy that was swallowed by the Milky Way.
The universe is an infinite abyss filled with curiosities that have been puzzling humankind since we first craned our necks to the moonlit sky. Among these mysteries, the origins and mergers of supermassive black holes hold a special place. Imagine a celestial entity with mass a million times that of the sun, tucked away in the center of a galaxy. That’s not just any old space mystery – it’s one of the grandest enigmas of the cosmos.
The Big Basin Redwood State Park in Santa Cruz, California, is home to some of the tallest and oldest redwood trees on Earth. The towering trees reach heights of over 300 feet (91 m) and have an incredibly thick bark. This natural armor usually protects their upper branches and needles from wildfire damage. However, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire that burned 97 percent of the park in August 2020, was so intense that it even scorched these ancient giants.
Earth has one of the most interesting weather systems. Its atmosphere is ideal for moving hot and cold air around, and a hydrological cycle allows for precipitation. But throughout our solar system, there are other planets that have more extreme and also fascinating weather patterns worth exploring.
Lightly frosted with snow, the peaks of Red Butte look particularly beautiful today, remarks Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla, an elder of the Havasupai Tribe. This land near the south rim of the Grand Canyon is sacred to her people as the place where their creation story says life began. It was once a hub of ceremony and prayer, but tribal members rarely visit now—not since the Pinyon Plain Mine started to extract uranium just 10 kilometers away.
