| Hefty black hole holds new record for most mass | | | Astronomers have set a new record for finding the most massive black hole in the universe. They found it not because it’s doing something exotic or noticeable. On the contrary, they noticed this black hole because it caused the center of its galaxy to be peculiarly fainter than it would be otherwise, given the galaxy’s huge mass of stars. Holmberg 15A is a supergiant elliptical galaxy some 700 million light-years from Earth. It's the central galaxy of the Abell 85 galaxy cluster. In contrast to our Milky Way’s central black hole of about 4 million solar masses, the new record-holding central black hole in the galaxy Holm 15A is 40 billion times more massive than our sun. Read more. | | |
| Interstellar object closest to the sun today | | | The 2nd-known interstellar object - identified as a comet and labeled 2I/Borisov - reaches its perihelion, or closest point to the sun, today. Comets tend to be most active when they're nearest the sun. Although this isn't a particularly close approach for a comet, it's the closest this interstellar comet will come to our sun. And so the eyes of the world are upon it. Read more. | | |
| |
