There’s a proverb in astronomy that goes something like, “black holes have no hair.” This indicates that black holes are extremely straightforward entities under the framework of general relativity. The only necessary characteristics of a black hole are its mass, electric charge, and spin rate. You now know everything there is to know about black holes just from those three numbers. That is to say, they are bare; they lack any further data.

This feature of black holes has been a major source of frustration for astronomers trying to figure out the inner workings of these cosmic behemoths. However, understanding black holes and their inner workings is impossible due to the absence of any kind of “hair” on their surfaces. Unfortunately, black holes continue to be among the universe’s most elusive and baffling features.

The present knowledge of general relativity, however, is essential to the “no-hair” black hole notion. The emphasis of this relativity illustration is on the curved nature of space-time. Any object with enough mass or energy to bend space-time around it will provide that object directions for movement.

Is cosmology in crisis?

If you want to find something that’s invisible except for its gravitational effects, look down the steepest gravity wells in the universe.

The supernova, which was first discovered in 1987, has a keyhole-like formation, full of clumpy gas and dust, at its center.

Scientists believe they have found an explanation for an “impossible” blast of energy that hit Earth.

Last year, scientists reported that they had seen evidence that gamma-ray bursts could come out of mergers between neutron stars and another compact object, in the form of a neutron star or black hole. That was previously thought not to be possible.

Scientists had initially thought that the 50-second blast came when a massive star collapsed, but further work looking at the afterglow of the emission showed that it was in fact a “kilonova”, which happens when neutron stars merge with other compact objects. Previously, it was thought that only a supernova could make a long gamma-ray burst of that kind.

A black hole created by the collision of two parent bodies can rebound at a speed of more than 28,000 kilometres per second.

Supermassive black holes sit at the center of many galaxies and are often surrounded by accretion disks that they feed on. Scientists observed a previously unexplored region near one – by accident.