In context: Binary systems composed of a supermassive black hole and a much smaller singularity orbiting around it are crucial for studying gravitational wave events. Detecting them, however, is ...

Black holes are some of the most mysterious and awe-inspiring celestial objects in science, and while pairs of black holes or a black hole orbiting another object like a star, known as binary black ...

Supermassive black holes that weigh several billion times the mass of our Sun are present at the centres of active galaxies. Astronomers observe them as bright galactic cores where the galaxy’s ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An illustration shows the black hole of V404 Cygni feeding from a stellar victim as a more ...

Many black holes detected to date appear to be part of a pair. These binary systems comprise a black hole and a secondary object — such as a star, a much denser neutron star, or another black hole — ...

If you know anything about black holes, it's that they have extraordinary gravitational pull, drawing in distant objects and devouring them. Unsurprisingly, many black holes have stellar companions ...

Astronomers noticed something odd while reviewing radio data from distant space. Three bright signals appeared close together. At first, it looked like a coincidence. It was not. Each signal came from ...

V404 Cygni is not just a regular member of any cosmic family. Tucked within the intriguing corners of space, this microquasar not only holds a black hole, but is also associated with two stars. One ...

Three’s company Artist's impression of V404 Cygni showing the black hole (right) surrounded by a swirling disc of matter that is being pulled from the nearby companion star (left). The distant ...

Researchers spotted a second distant star orbiting a well-known black hole and its stellar companion in a never-before-seen gravitational triad. The system's unique configuration suggests that the ...

In 2020 a team led by European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomers reported the closest black hole to Earth, located just 1000 light-years away in the HR 6819 system. But the results of their study ...