New finding might explain why quasars flare and fade so quickly
A new Northwestern University-led study is changing the way astrophysicists understand the eating habits of supermassive black holes.
While previous researchers have hypothesized that black holes eat slowly, new …
Last year, Northwestern University researchers reported new observational evidence that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can result from the merger of a neutron star with another compact object (either
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Longest time-lapse footage of an exoplanet to date was assembled from real data
A Northwestern University astrophysicist has created the longest time-lapse video of an exoplanet to date.
Constructed from real data, the footage shows Beta Pictoris b — a …
Northwestern University astrophysicists are part of an international team of scientists using advanced simulation tools that has predicted the existence of merging massive, 30 solar mass black hole binaries in Milky Way-like galaxies, challenging previous theories.
The team, which includes …
While searching for the origins of a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB), an international team of astrophysicists may have stumbled upon a new way to destroy a star.
Although most GRBs originate from exploding massive stars or neutron-star mergers, the researchers …
In a new Northwestern University-led study, astrophysicists crunched 12.5 years of data from 45 dead stars (called pulsars) to set the best limits yet on the gravitational wave signatures emitted from pairs of monster black holes. Knowing these limits will …
For the first time ever, the researchers have used state-of-the-art simulations to show that these cocoons can emit gravitational waves. And, unlike gamma-ray burst jets, cocoons’ gravitational waves should be within the frequency band that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory …
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered something wholly new, hidden in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
In the early 1980s, Northwestern University’s Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discovered gigantic, one-dimensional filaments dangling vertically near Sagittarius A*, our galaxy’s central supermassive …
For the first time, a team of astronomers — including Northwestern University assistant professor of physics and astronomy Jason Wang — used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system. The …
New findings from a team of Northwestern University astrophysicists provide insight into binary star formation and how magnetic fields influence the earliest stages of developing stars. Using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the researchers were able to take …