Star Wars fans are debating a commonly criticized plot hole, which may not actually be a plot hole after all. The so-called narrative inconsistency in question involves the Death Star ...

Black holes are invisible, yet they are among the brightest things in the universe. If a star wanders too close to a black hole, it gets torn apart in a fireworks show called a tidal disruption ...

When a black hole and a neutron star finally meet, the result is cosmic carnage—and now, thanks to Caltech’s latest supercomputer simulations, we’re getting a front-row seat to the whole ...

Sometimes a black hole is orbited by a neutron star—the dense corpse of a star also formed from a supernova explosion but which contains less mass than a black hole.

Astronomers have identified a supermassive black hole located on the outskirts of a galaxy 600 million light-years from Earth, where it was observed consuming a nearby star.

Every time this doomed star plunges through a supermassive black hole's accretion disk, it loses orbital energy and triggers a burst of X-rays.

Now, about a year later, we know it's the first tidal disruption event—meaning a star being ripped apart by a supermassive black hole—identified at visual wavelengths.

Now, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed a black hole in the act of devouring a star, ripping it apart and creating a huge burst of radiation.

Scientists have uncovered the existence of a binary star system close to the black hole near the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomers have watched a supermassive black hole take two bites of a star, and predicted when it might go back for a third. If it does, this should make for an intriguing stellar light show.

If a star gets too close to a black hole, it gets shredded and produces a complex ball of light. These videos are the first time this dramatic event has been simulated in detail.

Aug 20, 2024 Giant black holes in the centers of galaxies like our own Milky Way are known to occasionally munch on nearby stars. This leads to a dramatic and complex process as the star plunging ...