BLACK HOLE

Scientists have successfully measured, what they claimed, the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a stellar-mass black hole. The wind is moving at a record-breaking speed of about 20 million mph (32 million kph), or about 3 percent of the speed of light.

Astronomers announced Wednesday that a controversial midsized black hole matures by shredding apart a surrounding galaxy, a first glimpse into how the medium-sized black hole forms.

One of NASA's hardest working space explorers has helped astrophysicists determine a series of X-ray bursts from a distant system may be the telltale heartbeat of the tiniest black hole ever found.

Astronomers are eagerly awaiting the collision of a recently discovered gas cloud with the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy in 2013. Such a cosmic event has never been seen up close, and it will help scientists better understand exactly what happens when gas and light fall into a black hole.

Astrophysicists now have a snapshot of a rare event for the first time: a black hole eating its cold and dusty dinner.

An international team of astronomers and researchers discovered mysterious donut-shaped clouds close to some gigantic black holes in the Milky Way; inducing speculations that they are the cosmic remains of a high-impact planetary collision.

Scientists have hypothesized that black holes, super dense masses with gravity so strong not even light escapes, can vacuum up stars and shred them to pieces and squash them to smithereens. Trouble is, proof of the ripped-up stars eluded astronomers - until now.

NASA astronomers were able to get a closer look at the inner environment nearing the base of a black hole's jet through infrared observation. By using the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) astronomers captured some rare data of a flaring black hole, illuminating new details about these powerful stellar-mass black holes and their raging jets.

Researchers at Princeton University and New York University have developed a ready-made method for detecting the collision of stars with an elusive type of black hole that is believe to make up dark matter.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered a pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Located approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon.

Scientists provided new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since March. Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature revealed the information about the accident.

NASA scientists have managed to capture a distant galaxy's dormant black hole shredding and consuming a star.

This is the first time for scientists using the Swift satellite to view the process in its entirety, at the onset. Normally they are only able to snap photos of the aftermath, flares of ultraviolet and gamma rays that radiate for years during a star's consumption.

NASA's Swift Satellite has captured an unusual cosmic phenomenon of the awakening of a distant, dormant massive black hole and the subsequent devouring of a sun-like star.

NASA's Swift orbital telescope captured a surge of X-rays from deep space that scientists realized was the result of a massive black hole's consumption of a star.

Seen clearly on X-ray for the first time, a massive black hole is seen devouring hot gas in its vicinity.

A black hole at the center of a large galaxy has been seen attracting the motion of gas with its intense gravity and dominating the flow of gas towards it. As gas flows toward a black hole, it becomes squeezed, making it hotter and brighter, a phenomenon now confirmed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The celebrated vastness of Earth's oceans looks more like a droplet compared to a remote supermassive blackhole that contains 140 trillion times as much water.

Most of the huge black holes in the centers of galaxies in the past 11 billion years were not activated by galactic collisions, as had been previously thought, a new study reveals.

A dazzling burst of gamma rays observed in March from a supermassive black hole could have been due to a star falling into the massive black hole and being ripped apart, according to a team of astronomers.

An orbiting satellite, conducting a joint experiment of NASA and Stanford University, has shown that the Earth's gravity warps the space around it and that it drags spacetime itself along as it spins -- proving that a fundamental part of Relativity theory is correct.