Image List

Artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud (shown on right). When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities—often exceeding millions of miles per hour—becoming a hypervelocity star. The inset illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center of inset) while the other is ejected into space (lower right).

Credit: CfA/Melissa Weiss

Labeled artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud (shown on right). When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities—often exceeding millions of miles per hour—becoming a hypervelocity star. The inset illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center of inset) while the other is ejected into space (lower right).

Credit: CfA/Melissa Weiss

Artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud. When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities—often exceeding millions of miles per hour—becoming a hypervelocity star. This illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center) while the other is ejected into space (lower right).

Credit: CfA/Melissa Weiss

This is an image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the nearest galaxies to our Milky Way, as viewed by ESA’s Gaia satellite using information from the mission’s second data release. This view has been compiled by mapping the total amount of radiation detected by Gaia in each pixel, combined with measurements of the radiation taken through different filters on the spacecraft to generate color information. Astronomers have announced the discovery strong evidence for a supermassive black hole in the LMC, which would be the closest to Earth outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC