Earth’s atmosphere is opaque to X-rays, which is probably good news for life on this planet. It is not good news for ...

A balloon-borne telescope has captured one of the most precise glimpses yet of the chaotic environment around a black hole.

Some people may worry about being bitten by a snake or spider, but have you ever considered what would happen if a small ...

An international collaboration of physicists has made measurements to better understand how matter falls into black holes and ...

The Nature Index 2024 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

The black hole at the Milky Way’s heart neither slumbers nor sleeps. Instead, the ring of plasma surrounding it flickers constantly, punctuated by superbright flares, observations show. Astronomers ...

A black hole’s bizarre "heartbeat" is forcing astronomers to reconsider how these cosmic heavyweights behave. Observations of IGR J17091-3624 — a black hole in a binary system roughly 28,000 ...

Gravitational waves—ripples in space-time caused by violent cosmic events—travel at the speed of light in every direction, eventually fading out like ripples in water. But some events are so ...