National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Last year, astronomers discovered a quiescent black hole in a distant galaxy that erupted after shredding and consuming a passing star. Now researchers have identified a distinctive X-ray signal observed in the days following the outburst that comes from matter on the verge of falling into the black hole.

An international team of astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and the Japanese/U.S. Suzaku X-ray observatory has discovered a new class of active galactic nuclei (AGN). By now, you'd think that astronomers would have found all the different classes of AGN - extraordinarily energetic cores of galaxies powered by accreting supermassive black holes. AGN such as… Continue reading »