A new habitat is prepped for volunteers to test living in Mars-like conditions for a year, @NASAWebb detects signs of water vapor on a distant planet, and we celebrate #BlackHoleWeek—that’s what’s up This Week at NASA.

Wrap up the celebration with us: https://go.nasa.gov/44B3u1j
#NASA

We celebrate Cinco de Mayo today and close out Black Hole Week with this image of the Sombrero galaxy, which harbors a central super massive black hole with 1 billion solar masses.

The beautiful Sombrero galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 30 million light-years from Earth.

#BlackHoleWeek #Hubble #CincoDeMayo

To wrap up #BlackHoleWeek, here’s a parting gift – a new Hubble image of the galaxy NGC 5283!

Matter falling into a supermassive black hole creates the bright glow at the galaxy’s heart.

Learn more: https://go.nasa.gov/44y4C5N
#Hubble

RT @NSF
Fire-breathing dragons, monsters of the universe, pocket-size powerhouses – black holes beggar the imagination & attempts to study them.

On #BlackHoleWeek, @NSF recommits to research that can open a wider window to the cosmos.
https://bit.ly/3NICB5J

📷: D. Dayag CC-BY-SA-4.0

#BlackHoleWeek

https://universe.nasa.gov/black-hole-week/overview

When we say “supermassive black holes,” just how do they measure up?

Using their shadows for size, we’ve rounded up 10 black holes and compared them to objects in our solar system. Don’t worry – these black holes are many light-years away: https://go.nasa.gov/3HIcDeW #BlackHoleWeek
#NASA

May the 4th be with you.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/cygnusx1.html
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #BlackHoleWeek
5/n

NGC 547 is a bright radio galaxy, meaning it has giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure. These lobes are powered by the active galactic nucleus at its center, which hosts a black hole.

Happy #BlackHoleWeek!
#Hubble

RT @ESO
Curious about black holes? 🕳️ Let’s take a walk down memory lane during this #BlackHoleWeek and see how ESO’s telescopes have contributed to our understanding of these enigmatic objects. 1/

RT @SOFIAtelescope
At home in the Milky Way, magnetic fields appear to be channeling the gas into an orbit around the black hole, rather than directly into it. This may explain why our galaxy’s black hole is not actively feasting.

More: https://go.nasa.gov/3USPfk1

#BlackHoleWeek

May the 4th be with you.

https://www.aei.mpg.de/78997/ligo-and-virgo-announce-four-new-gravitational-wave-detections
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #BlackHoleWeek
4/n

May the 4th be with you.

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/201214-space-time-ripples-detected-for-the-very-first-time
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #BlackHoleWeek
3/n

May the 4th be with you.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/new-nasa-visualization-probes-the-light-bending-dance-of-binary-black-holes
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #BlackHoleWeek
2/n

May the 4th be with you.
#maythe4thbewithyou #BlackHoleWeek

Our #BlackHoleWeek event is on the horizon. 🕳️

Join our May 5 @TwitterSpaces to learn from experts as they talk about black holes, including the one at the center of our galaxy. #AskNASA your questions and they might be answered live. https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1eaKbrOqoeeKX
#NASA

Is it really Black Hole Week?
Yes, it really is!
Well then, happy Black Hole Week to all who celebrate!!!! I wonder what the traditional food and rituals are. Probably donuts. Dark chocolate donuts would make sense.

I call this painting Question Cat. Question Cat won’t answer any of your questions.
#BlackHoleWeek #watercolor #painting #mathart #scienceart

Interacting galaxies, known as AM 1214-255, shine bright in this new view from Hubble!

Both galaxies contain active galactic nuclei, which are luminous central regions that host a black hole. Learn more for #BlackHoleWeek: https://go.nasa.gov/3VoUSa9
#Hubble

The paper titled "Unicorns and Giraffes in the binary zoo: stripped giants with subgiant
companions", explains, based on new observations, why V723 Mon is not a black hole.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.06348

There are a few other small black holes in the 3 to 10 solar mass range, listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolman%E2%80%93Oppenheimer%E2%80%93Volkoff_limit#List_of_least_massive_black_holes

Shown below is XTE J1650-500, a binary system containing a black hole with 5 - 10 solar masses.

#BlackHoleWeek
5/n

The smallest known black hole, V723 Mon, nicknamed "The Unicorn" clocks in at just 3 solar masses. Discovered in 2021, it is also the closest black hole, located 1,500 ly from Earth.

Follow-up work in 2022 argued that V723 Monocerotis does not contain a black hole, but is a mass-transfer binary containing a red giant and a subgiant star that has been stripped of much of its mass.

https://twitter.com/j_tharindu/status/1384948741954805769
https://news.osu.edu/black-hole-is-closest-to-earth-among-the-smallest-ever-discovered/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V723_Monocerotis

#BlackHoleWeek #Science
4/n

NASA states the mass of TON 618 as 60+ billion solar masses, which I think is based on an earlier estimate. Newer estimates put the mass at 40 billion solar masses.

The theoretical limit for SMBHs is stated as 50 billion solar masses.

Under certain unlikely conditions, they can grow to 270 billion solar masses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole#Maximum_mass_limit

#BlackHoleWeek #SMBH #Science
3/n