Space.com May 30, 2018, “World Science Festival Kicks Off in NYC with Black Holes, Aliens and More.”

Science fans from around the globe will converge in New York City this week for the 11th annual World Science Festival, a celebration of scientific discoveries with more than 70 live events. The festival kicked off Tuesday (May 29) and runs through Sunday (June 3).

The World Science Festival will host live discussions and debates about topics like aliens, antimatter, black holes and gravitational waves. Speakers will include astronauts, astrophysicists and science celebrities like theoretical physicist Brian Greene, who co-founded the festival.

Currently, physicists refer to the core of a black hole as a “singularity,” … “‘Singularity’ is nothing but a euphemism that really means we don’t know what the heck is going on,” Greene said.

For a complete list of events happening at the World Science Festival this week, visit worldsciencefestival.com.

Regarding theories which unify the mathematics of quantum mechanics and general relativity (to explain black holes, etc.), here’s another Space.com article, “What’s the Absolutely Amazing Theory of Almost Everything?” (May 30,2018) which summarizes the state of the standard model of particle physics.

And this article discusses a new virtual tour released by NASA: “Explore the Milky Way’s Monster Black Hole with This Virtual Tour” (May 30, 2018).

“Researchers combed through data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, looking for possible black holes in close orbit with a star,” researchers said in a new video posted on the Chandra website.

The video zooms in on Sagittarius A*, with suspected locations of other black holes circled in the animation. But there are other possible explanations for the X-ray sources. At least half of the observed X-ray radiation might be from rapidly rotating neutron stars that have strong magnetic fields, according to scientists at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.