Our knowledge of black holes has grown exponentially since Princeton quantum physicist John Wheeler first named these enigmatic monsters in 1967, observing that “the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.” Observations have shown that stellar black holes typically have masses of about ten times that of the Sun, in accordance with the theory of stellar evolution. But a Chinese team of astronomers recently claimed to have discovered a black hole as massive as 70 solar masses, which, if confirmed, would severely challenge the current view of stellar evolution.
“After three Antarctic seasons — with 19 launch attempts, two launches and one recovery of the payload from a crevasse field — it is wonderful to have SuperTIGER-2 finally reach float altitude and begin collecting scientific data,” said Brian Rauch, research assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University SuperTIGER –the balloon-borne scientific instrument that finished its first full revolution of Antarctica to measure the rare heavy elements in cosmic rays that hold clues about their origins outside of the solar system.
Today’s “Galaxy Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our knowledge of the Milky Way and the Universe beyond.
From dark-matter life to billion-year old technological civilizations: In 2019, several leading astrophysicists from NASA to Harvard and Columbia universities have publicly announced their view that aliens are not science fiction: that advanced and ancient technological civilizations may exist but be beyond our comprehension or ability to detect. As early as the NASA Contact Conference in 2002, which focused on serious speculation about advanced extraterrestrial life, an attendee loudly interrupted the keynote speech with the observation that “We have absolutely no idea what is out there!”
“For a long time, I assumed there was something wrong with the data interpretation,” said astrophysicist Duane Pontius, who developed a theoretical model that played a role in the discovery of geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. “It’s just not possible.” How does an entire planet change the speed of its rotation in 20 years? That’s the sort of change that takes hundreds of millions of years. Even more mysterious was the Cassini Mission’s detection of electromagnetic patterns that suggested the that Saturn’s rotation is different in the northern and southern hemispheres.