Black holes snacking on small stars create particle accelerators that bombard Earth with cosmic rays

a bright orb next to a cloud of brown dust

Using 16 years of data from NASA’s gamma-ray detecting Fermi spacecraft, astronomers have discovered that “microquasars,” systems in which a black hole is slowly devouring a star, may be small, but they pack one heck of a punch. Despite their diminutive nature, this research suggests even microquasars snacking on small stars can have an impressive … Read more

Gamma rays create Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World, but how do they work in the real world?

A comic book still showing a huge red-skinned man with an angry expression, surrounded by fire.

Captain America: Brave New World opens in theaters globally on Valentine’s Day 2025, bringing with it a popular expansion to Hulk-lore, the Red Hulk. Like all Hulks across various forms of media, there is a good chance that the origins of the Red Hulk in the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) are … Read more

Stars get ripped open like Christmas presents to create strange ‘JuMBO’ worlds

Scientists have received an unexpected Christmas gift this year: a potential solution to the mystery of JuMBOs, strange celestial objects that seem not to be planets or stars. Try putting a bow on that! This gift comes courtesy of a team of researchers who believe that mysterious JuMBOs (Jupiter-mass binary objects) are actually stellar cores … Read more