Compact astrophysical objects articles from across Nature Portfolio

The current observations and understanding of black holes is reviewed, and the future of the field of black-hole astrophysics is discussed.

Observations from a multiwavelength campaign of a low-mass X-ray binary, Swift J1858.6–0814, shows that accreting neutron stars have the same kind of pulsing behaviour as accreting black holes.

Spectra taken after the kilonova associated with GW170817 show a high degree of spherical symmetry and a line shape is found that is consistent with a completely spherical expansion to within a few per cent.

A few missing photons in Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observations lead to robust neutron star mass measurements in eclipsing millisecond pulsar binaries, ruling out an ultra-massive pulsar in the original Black Widow system.

Analysis of a large galaxy sample shows that black hole activity is greater in galaxies in which the stellar and gas kinematics are misaligned. This observation suggests that the misalignment, driven by external gas accretion, fuels the central supermassive black holes.

An abrupt slow-down in a magnetar’s rotation rate (a ‘glitch’) may be related to the subsequent emission of three radio bursts (resembling fast radio bursts) and a month-long episode of pulsed radio emission.