Cosmology

Britain-based astronomers say there is new evidence to suggest the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy is consuming a steady daily diet of asteroids it has stripped away from their parent stars. Milky Way's Black Hole Our Milky Way galaxy’s supermassive black hole is apparently dining on all-you-can-eat asteroids, according to a new study. Dubbed Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A star”), the monster black hole lies 26,000 light-years away in the galactic center...Read Full Story

Many of the Universe's galaxies are like our own, displaying beautiful spiral arms wrapping around a bright nucleus. Examples in this stunning image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, include the tilted galaxy at the bottom of the frame, shining behind a Milky Way star, and the small spiral at the top center. Other galaxies are even odder in shape. Markarian 779, the galaxy at the top of this image, has a distorted appearance because it is likely the...Read Full Story

The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A new study provides a possible explanation of mysterious X-ray flares detected by Chandra over the period of several years. It suggests that there is a cloud around Sgr A* containing trillions of asteroids and comets, stripped from their parent stars. The flares occur...Read Full Story

msnbc.com The Milky Way's Asteroid-Eating Black Hole The Atlantic Rebecca J. Rosen - Rebecca J. Rosen is an associate editor at The Atlantic. She was previously an associate editor at The Wilson Quarterly, where she spearheaded the magazine's In Essence section. By Rebecca J. Rosen The above images shows Sagittarius ... Black Hole Eats Asteroids, Burps Out X-Rays Wired News Black Hole in Milky Way Seen Snacking on Asteroids? National Geographic Milky Way's enormous black hole gorges on...Read Full Story

It is not entirely clear when exactly the last major asteroid impact on Earth occurred. But there are plenty of examples of impact craters, such as the Nördlinger Ries in Bavaria. That there will be other collisions in the future is something of which Alan Harris, asteroid researcher at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), is certain.   Barringer Crater in Arizona Credit: DLR Over the next three and a half years, he will be heading...Read Full Story