New Class of Black Holes Discovered



Only two sizes of black holes have ever been spotted: small and super-massive. Scientists have long speculated that an intermediate version must exist, but they’ve never been able to find one until now.
Astrophysicists identified what appears to be the first-ever medium-sized black hole, pictured in an artist’s rendition above, with a mass at least 500 times that of our Sun. Researchers from the Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements in France detected the middling hole in a galaxy about 290 million light-years from Earth.

The discovery may shed some light on the origins of super-sized black holes like the one at the center of our own galaxy. These astral heavyweights top out at several million to several billion times the mass of the Sun, but their origin remains a mystery...

The Sun Has Spots, Finally

After one of the longest sunspot droughts in modern times, solar activity picked up quickly over the weekend.
A new group of sunspots developed, and while not dramatic by historic standards, the spots were the most significant in many months.
"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif., said on Spaceweather.com.
Solar activity goes in a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots are the visible signs of that activity, and they are the sites from which massive solar storms lift off. The past two years have marked the lowest low in the cycle since 1913, and for a while scientists were wondering if activity would ever pick back up...


Sunspot groups 1024 developed over the 4th of July weekend, and while it did not create any historically spectacular fireworks, it has been kicking up modest solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI

Asia braces for total solar eclipse



Millions of people across Asia will witness the longest total solar eclipse expected this century early on Wednesday.

Vast swathes of India and China and the southern Japanese islands are to be plunged into darkness for more than six minutes.
Thousands of amateur stargazers and scientists have travelled to what were expected to be the best places to observe the eclipse. ...

NASA confirms Jupiter smash

The smash - captured here in a NASA image - was first noticed by an Australian amateur astronomer (Source: NASA/JPL/Infrared Telescope Facility)



Fifteen years after being battered by Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Jupiter has drawn the fire of another renegade body.
A dark scar near the planet's southern polar region, first noticed by an amateur astronomer in Australia, is believed to have been caused by a comet crashing into the giant planet.
Infrared images taken by a NASA telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, show a dark scar-like patch and a bright shower of debris particles in the planet's upper atmosphere.
The impact site also shows a warming in the planet's troposphere, and possibly higher levels of ammonia gas...

On top of the world! Sensational collection o...atural wonders from space

For decades, man has gazed up at the stars and marvelled at the wonders of the universe.
But, as this amazing selection of images shows, there are many mind-blowing sights to behold from the other direction.
Pictures taken by astronauts and Nasa satellites give a fascinating bird's-eye view of Earth's