By Agence France-Presse

PARIS — Scientists have discovered a huge, gravity-sucking hole at the heart of our galaxy.

The stunning observations, to be published later this month, offer the best proof yet that supermassive black holes — among the most enigmatic and powerful forces in the universe — really do exist.

By tracking the orbit of 28 stars inside our own Milky Way for more than 16 years, scientists in Germany were able to trace the most detailed portrait ever obtained of these invisible monsters.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

BOY, when black holes exhale, they sure don’t kid around.

Scientists are studying a gigantic plasma cloud that is six million light years wide (the Space.com article notes that an earlier press release erroneously said the cloud was 600 million light years wide), which could be the product of the “collective sigh of several supermassive black holes.”

Here’s an excerpt from the Space.com article:

[Read the rest of this entry »]