Space

Brisbane, Australia — More accurate clocks and sensors may result from a recently proposed experiment, linking an Einstein-devised paradox to quantum mechanics. University of Queensland physicist Dr. Magdalena Zych said the international collaboration aimed to test Einstein’s twin paradox using quantum particles in a ‘superposition’ state. “The twin paradox is one of the most counterintuitive […]

Riverside, CA — Just like the moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the sun, galaxies orbit each other according to the predictions of cosmology. For example, more than 50 discovered satellite galaxies orbit our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The largest of these is the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, a large dwarf […]

Brighton, UK — New research conducted at the University of Sussex has simulated dark matter in a new way, disrupting conventional thinking about the make-up of the universe. The research, published in Physical Review Letters, was done alongside Princeton, Harvard, Cambridge and MIT universities and others. Scientists have long suspected that a large proportion of […]

Greenbelt, MD — This new visualization of a black hole illustrates how its gravity distorts our view, warping its surroundings as if seen in a carnival mirror. The visualization simulates the appearance of a black hole where infalling matter has collected into a thin, hot structure called an accretion disk. The black hole’s extreme gravity […]

Houghton, MI — Astrophysicists Jon Hakkila of the College of Charleston and Robert Nemiroff of the Michigan Technological University have published research indicating that blasts that create gamma-ray bursts may actually exceed the speed of light in surrounding gas clouds, but do so without violating Einstein’s theory of relativity. Hakkila and Nemiroff propose that such […]

Green Bank, WV — Neutron stars – the compressed remains of massive stars gone supernova – are the densest “normal” objects in the known universe. (Black holes are technically denser, but far from normal.) Just a single sugar-cube worth of neutron-star material would weigh 100 million tons here on Earth, or about the same as […]

Stony Brook, NY — For the first time, astrophysicists have heard a black hole ringing like a bell. By reanalyzing the first black hole merger ever detected, the astrophysicists measured the gravitational wave ‘tones’ emitted following the event. The breakthrough comes 10 years earlier than expected and confirms that the properties of black holes are […]

Berkeley, CA — A team of scientists has discovered a new possible pathway toward forming carbon structures in space using a specialized chemical exploration technique at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The team’s research has now identified several avenues by which ringed molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, […]

Tucson, AZ — How do galaxies such as our Milky Way come into existence? How do they grow and change over time? The science behind galaxy formation has remained a puzzle for decades, but a University of Arizona-led team of scientists is one step closer to finding answers thanks to supercomputer simulations. Observing real galaxies […]

Honolulu, Hawaii — An astronomer from the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy and an international team published a new study that reveals more of the vast cosmic structure surrounding our Milky Way galaxy. The universe is a tapestry of galaxy congregations and vast voids. In a new study being reported in The Astrophysical Journal, […]

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain — The universe 13,000 million years ago was very different from the universe we know today. It is understood that stars were forming at a very rapid rate, forming the first dwarf galaxies, whose mergers gave rise to the more massive present-day galaxies, including our own. However the exact chain […]

Dallas, TX — Nearly 50 years after man’s first steps on the moon, researchers have discovered a way that may help astronauts spending prolonged time in space come back to Earth on more stable footing, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation. “One of the biggest problems since the inception of […]