'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
An ultramassive black hole, understood to be one of the largest ever detected, has been discovered by astronomers using a new technique.
The findings, published by the Royal Astronomical Society, show that the black hole is more than 30 billion times the mass of the sun -- a scale rarely seen by astronomers.
The researchers described it as an "extremely exciting" discovery that opens up "tantalizing" possibilities for detecting further black holes.
The team, led by Durham University in the United Kingdom, used a technique known as gravitational lensing -- whereby a nearby galaxy is used as a giant magnifying glass to bend the light from a more distant object. This enabled them to closely examine how light is bent by a black hole inside a galaxy hundreds of millions of light years from Earth.
Supercomputer simulations and images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope were also used to confirm the size of the black hole.
This is the first black hole found using gravitational lensing, with the team simulating light travelling through the universe hundreds of thousands of times, according to a news release from the Royal Astronomical Society.
"This particular black hole, which is roughly 30 billion times the mass of our Sun, is one of the biggest ever detected and on the upper limit of how large we believe black holes can theoretically become, so it is an extremely exciting discovery," lead study author James Nightingale, an observational cosmologist from the Department of Physics at Durham University, said.
"Most of the biggest black holes that we know about are in an active state, where matter pulled in close to the black hole heats up and releases energy in the form of light, X-rays, and other radiation," Nightingale added.
"However, gravitational lensing makes it possible to study inactive black holes, something not currently possible in distant galaxies. This approach could let us detect many more black holes beyond our local universe and reveal how these exotic objects evolved further back in cosmic time."
Researchers believe the finding is significant as it "opens up the tantalising possibility that astronomers can discover far more inactive and ultramassive black holes than previously thought" and "investigate how they grew so large," according to the news release.
The story of this particular discovery started back in 2004 when fellow Durham University astronomer, Alastair Edge, a research fellow, noticed a giant arc of a gravitational lens when reviewing images of a galaxy survey, according to the news release.
The team has now revisited the discovery and explored it further with the help of NASA's Hubble telescope and the DiRAC COSMA8 supercomputer.
Ultramassive black holes are the most massive objects in the universe and a rare find for astronomers.
Their origins are unclear, with some believing they were formed from the merging of galaxies billions of years ago.
Each time a galaxy merges with another one, stars are lost and a black hole gains mass -- which accounts for the incredibly high mass of some black holes.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.