Black hole news, features and articles

Black holes are regions in space where matter is squeezed, and gravity becomes so intense that not even light can escape its pull. At Live Science, our expert writers and editors report on the most massive black hole findings, from a supermassive black hole found spitting a giant, high-energy jet toward Earth to a gargantuan black hole becoming one of the brightest objects ever seen, and answer your most pressing questions about these weird phenomena — what happens at the center of a black hole and could a black hole devour the universe — with the latest black hole news, features and articles.
Discover more about black holes
—What are black holes? Everything you need to know about the darkest objects in the universe
Latest about Black Holes

Black holes can destroy planets — but they can also lead us to thriving alien worlds. Here's how.
By David Garofalo published
Whether a galactic environment has the right conditions for habitable planets to form could depend on how the black hole in that galaxy is rotating.

Black holes may obey the laws of physics after all, new theory suggests
By Robert Lea published
"The singularity is the most mysterious and problematic part of a black hole. It's where our concepts of space and time literally no longer make sense."

Stephen Hawking's black hole theory has big implications for the shape of the universe, new study claims
By Andrey Feldman published
Elusive black hole radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking may have influenced the way the universe took shape after the Big Bang, new research suggests.

Record-setting black hole 'echo' accidentally uncovered by high-school student
By Jenna Ahart published
While sifting out signatures of supernova remnants, a high-schooler stumbled upon the afterglow of a dormant black hole. It may be one of the largest ever seen.

Is our universe trapped inside a black hole? This James Webb Space Telescope discovery might blow your mind
By Robert Lea published
"I think that the simplest explanation of the rotating universe is the universe was born in a rotating black hole."

Evidence for Stephen Hawking's unproven black hole theory may have just been found — at the bottom of the sea
By Paul Sutter published
The recent discovery of a stupendously powerful neutrino has left scientists scratching their heads. New research suggests it could be evidence that Stephen Hawking was right about the nature of black holes and the early universe.

Unproven Einstein theory of 'gravitational memory' may be real after all, new study hints
By Andrey Feldman published
Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests that the "memory" of ancient events, such as black hole mergers, may be etched into the fabric of space-time by gravitational waves. New research shows how this theory of gravitational memory could finally be proven.

'Cosmic Horseshoe' may contain black hole the size of 36 billion suns — one of the largest ever detected
By Ben Turner published
The "Cosmic Horseshoe" is an Einstein ring, a system made up of a foreground galaxy whose mass is so great, it warps the light from a galaxy behind it. Now, astronomers know where it gets this mass from.

Scientists may have just discovered 300 of the rarest black holes in the universe
By Ben Turner published
How black holes grow to monstrous scales is one of astronomy's prevailing enigmas. A new record-breaking dataset, which reveals 300 potential 'missing link black holes', could help to unravel it.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.