Some galaxies undergo a rapid star formation phase, losing stellar gases to intergalactic space, others choose to recycle, thereby extending their star forming lifespans (NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)) It sounds like an over-hyped public service announcement: If you don’t recycle, you’ll...

The black hole lurking inside galaxy M87 has a mass of 6.6 billion suns, according to today's announcement (NASA) Fresh from the Department Of I Really Shouldn’t Have Eaten That Last Binary, astronomers attending the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Wash., have announced a supermassive...

Conceptual design of the Fermilab holometer (Fermilab) During the hunt for the predicted ripples in space-time — known as gravitational waves — physicists stumbled across a rather puzzling phenomenon. Last year, I reported about the findings of scientists using the GEO600 experiment in Germany....

Where is this mystical land? (NASA/ESA/HST). Sometimes, words are not enough to describe views of the universe when captured through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is one of those moments. Kicking off its 20th anniversary (yes, that super-sized telescope has been in space that long —...

Forget building gravitational wave detectors costing hundreds of millions of dollars (I’m looking at you, LIGO), make use of the most accurate cosmic timekeepers instead and save a bundle. The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a proposal that involves...

Artists impression of an ultra-luminous galaxy heating the surrounding dust (JAXA/ISAS/LIRA) In the early 1980′s, NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) detected a number of unknown objects lurking in the depths of the cosmos. At the time, these IRAS objects stirred speculation in...

The M87 black hole blasts relativistic plumes of gas 5000 ly from the centre of the galaxy (NASA) I just spent 5 minutes trying to think up a title to this post. I knew what I wanted to say, but the subject is so “out there” I’m not sure if any title would be adequate. As it turns out,...

The event horizon of a black hole is the point of no return. If anything, even light, strays within the bounds of this gravitational trap, it will never escape. The event horizon is what makes a black hole black. But say if there was a way to remove the event horizon, leaving just the black hole’s...

Apologies for the break in Astroengine Live service. Due to some uber-technical problems, I’m going to have to re-launch the show this time next week. Stay tuned for updates. For now, check out my Astroengine Live archives and enjoy! *** Earlier post: It’s been a while, but Astroengine Live...

Immediately after the Big Bang, 13.72 billion (±120 million) years ago, the Universe was filled with energy. Nothing but energy. No protons, electrons, quarks or photons; just energy. Even the fundamental forces of nature (gravity, weak, strong, electromagnetic) were a confused mess and could...