Merger of ‘impossibly’ massive black holes explained

The question of how black holes grow should be an easy one to answer: they absorb material from their surroundings. But despite their fearsome reputation, supermassive black holes don’t rampage throug

As an astronomer, I collect stars. There are several hundred billion of them in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, so it’s important to find a way to categorise them. While others might rank their stars by co

An artist’s impression of Cha 1107-7626 accreting material ...

Our understanding of the Universe has revealed that its existence, and indeed our own, relies on a particular set of rules. For example, the fundamental ‘constants of nature’, such as the charge of th

Amazing answers to your curious questions

Astronomers are now regularly detecting planets thousands of light years from Earth – but have we missed one in our own Solar System?