Aug 7, 2025 05:40 PM
What a nuclear reactor on the Moon really means for NASA’s future
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...moon-nasa/
KEY POINTS: For long-term plans of human settlements on the Moon, power is a major issue, as the fourteen-day-long nights necessitate a power source other than the Sun for sustained operations. However, as announced on August 4, 2025, a plan to launch a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor by 2030 is overly ambitious given the state of current technology, and threatens to siphon funds from other essential services. Instead of securing and enhancing the long-term future of American science and technology in space, this instead provides a blueprint and justification for dismantling and defunding NASA science... (MORE - details)
Meet the Universe’s Earliest Confirmed Black Hole: A Monster at the Dawn of Time
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1093873
EXCERPTS: An international team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has identified the most distant black hole ever confirmed. It and the galaxy it calls home, CAPERS-LRD-z9, are present 500 million years after the Big Bang. That places it 13.3 billion years into the past, when our universe was just 3% of its current age. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to study the structure and evolution of this enigmatic period.
“When looking for black holes, this is about as far back as you can practically go. We’re really pushing the boundaries of what current technology can detect,” said Anthony Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cosmic Frontier Center and lead on the team that made the discovery. Their research was published Aug. 6 in the Astrophysical Journal.
“While astronomers have found a few, more distant candidates,” added Steven Finkelstein, a co-author on the paper and director of the Cosmic Frontier Center, “they have yet to find the distinct spectroscopic signature associated with a black hole.”
[...] Finding such a massive black hole so early on provides astronomers a valuable opportunity to study how these objects developed. A black hole present in the later universe will have had diverse opportunities to bulk up during its lifetime. But one present in the first few hundred million years wouldn’t. “This adds to growing evidence that early black holes grew much faster than we thought possible,” said Finkelstein. “Or they started out far more massive than our models predict.” (MORE - details, no ads)
Most massive black hole ever discovered' is detected
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1093941
INTRO: Astronomers have discovered potentially the most massive black hole ever detected. The cosmic behemoth is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe and is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.
It exists in one of the most massive galaxies ever observed – the Cosmic Horseshoe – which is so big it distorts spacetime and warps the passing light of a background galaxy into a giant horseshoe-shaped Einstein ring. Such is the enormousness of the ultramassive black hole’s size, it equates to 36 billion solar masses, according to a new paper published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society... (MORE - details, no ads)
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...moon-nasa/
KEY POINTS: For long-term plans of human settlements on the Moon, power is a major issue, as the fourteen-day-long nights necessitate a power source other than the Sun for sustained operations. However, as announced on August 4, 2025, a plan to launch a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor by 2030 is overly ambitious given the state of current technology, and threatens to siphon funds from other essential services. Instead of securing and enhancing the long-term future of American science and technology in space, this instead provides a blueprint and justification for dismantling and defunding NASA science... (MORE - details)
Meet the Universe’s Earliest Confirmed Black Hole: A Monster at the Dawn of Time
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1093873
EXCERPTS: An international team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has identified the most distant black hole ever confirmed. It and the galaxy it calls home, CAPERS-LRD-z9, are present 500 million years after the Big Bang. That places it 13.3 billion years into the past, when our universe was just 3% of its current age. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to study the structure and evolution of this enigmatic period.
“When looking for black holes, this is about as far back as you can practically go. We’re really pushing the boundaries of what current technology can detect,” said Anthony Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cosmic Frontier Center and lead on the team that made the discovery. Their research was published Aug. 6 in the Astrophysical Journal.
“While astronomers have found a few, more distant candidates,” added Steven Finkelstein, a co-author on the paper and director of the Cosmic Frontier Center, “they have yet to find the distinct spectroscopic signature associated with a black hole.”
[...] Finding such a massive black hole so early on provides astronomers a valuable opportunity to study how these objects developed. A black hole present in the later universe will have had diverse opportunities to bulk up during its lifetime. But one present in the first few hundred million years wouldn’t. “This adds to growing evidence that early black holes grew much faster than we thought possible,” said Finkelstein. “Or they started out far more massive than our models predict.” (MORE - details, no ads)
Most massive black hole ever discovered' is detected
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1093941
INTRO: Astronomers have discovered potentially the most massive black hole ever detected. The cosmic behemoth is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe and is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.
It exists in one of the most massive galaxies ever observed – the Cosmic Horseshoe – which is so big it distorts spacetime and warps the passing light of a background galaxy into a giant horseshoe-shaped Einstein ring. Such is the enormousness of the ultramassive black hole’s size, it equates to 36 billion solar masses, according to a new paper published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society... (MORE - details, no ads)