black hole
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Globular Clusters: The Untold Story
Meet Messier 13: my sentimental favorite globular cluster. For more than a decade now, one of my favorite things has been to set up my telescopes at astronomy outreach events and show people the night sky. I have two telescopes…
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Dark Matter: What We Know
I considered titling this post “Dark Matter Demystified” and including it in my “Cosmos Demystified” series…but honestly, there are some promises I can’t make! Dark matter is one of the most mysterious concepts in cosmology, second only to the even…
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A Peek at Supermassive Black Holes
There are few things in the universe quite as exciting as black holes. They’re in all the movies — I even wrote a post a few years ago on what the movies get wrong about them! Though some movies, like…
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Stellar Evolution Demystified
Whaddya know…after what seems like a geological age, we’re finally done with stellar evolution! And we’ve covered a truly ridiculous amount of information. We’ve covered a star’s relatively gentle, humble beginnings within the collapsing cores of giant molecular clouds (or…
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How to Find a Black Hole
Okay, good question. How the heck do you find an object that emits no radiation? Astronomers find — and study — just about everything in the universe using the radiation it emits or reflects. So…what happens when the object we’re…
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Black Holes: What the Movies Get Wrong
Any of you recognize this? To those who don’t, it probably looks like a pretty unimpressive, blurry ring. In fact, this is the first ever image of a black hole, taken with an interferometer the size of the Earth. If…
