Scientists Find New Way of Exploring the Afterglow From the Big Bang
Researchers have developed a new way to improve our knowledge of the Big Bang by measuring radiation from its afterglow, called the cosmic microwave background…
Astrophysics
Is Dark Matter Composed of Primordial Black Holes?
Astronomers studying the motions of galaxies and the character of the cosmic microwave background radiation came to realize in the last century that most of…
Unprecedented ‘Dissection’ of Twin Galaxies in Final Stages of Merging
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have completed an unprecedented “dissection” of twin galaxies in the final stages of merging. The new study, led…
New Research Helps Explain Mercury’s Magnetic Tail
Theoretical physicists used simulations to explain the unusual readings collected in 2009 by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission. The origin…
Astrophysicists Test Theories of Gravity with Black Hole Shadows
Can we tell black holes apart? Astrophysicists at Goethe University Frankfurt answer this question by computing images of feeding non-Einsteinian black holes: At present it…
Astrophysicists Are Unlocking the Secrets to Dark Matter
University of Miami astrophysicist Nico Cappelluti studies the sky. An assistant professor in the Physics Department, Cappelluti is intrigued by the cosmic phenomena of super…
New Model Supports Connection Between Gamma Ray Bursts and Supernovae
A “core-collapse” supernova occurs when the iron core of a massive star collapses under the force of gravity and then rebounds, generating pressure waves and…
ADMX Breakthrough in Axion Dark Matter Detection Technology
New result draws on 30 years of research and development and begins the definitive search for axion particles. Forty years ago, scientists theorized a new…
How Short-Period Binary Systems Eject Orbiting Worlds
Planets orbiting “short-period” binary stars, or stars locked in close orbital embrace, can be ejected off into space as a consequence of their host stars’…
Astronomers Discover Fascinating Discs Around Young Stars
The SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile allows astronomers to suppress the brilliant light of nearby stars in order to obtain…
Tiny Distortions Reveal Clearer Picture of Strands in Cosmic Web
Scientists have decoded faint distortions in the patterns of the universe’s earliest light to map huge tubelike structures invisible to our eyes – known as…
Dense Stellar Clusters Are Home to Black Hole ‘Megamergers’
Black holes in dense stellar clusters could combine repeatedly to form objects bigger than anything a single star could produce. When LIGO’s twin detectors first…
New Research Shows Dark Matter Might Not Be Interactive After All
Astronomers are back in the dark about what dark matter might be, after new observations showed the mysterious substance may not be interacting with forces…
Astrophysicists Create New Method to Measure Dark Matter in Dwarf Galaxies
Astrophysicists from the University of Surrey and the University of Edinburgh have created a new method to measure the amount of dark matter at the…
Astrophysicists Discover a Dozen Black Holes Orbiting Sgr A*
A Columbia University-led team of astrophysicists has discovered a dozen black holes gathered around Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole in the center…
Hubble Makes Precise Distance Measurement to One of the Oldest Objects in the Universe
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have for the first time precisely measured the distance to one of the oldest objects in the universe, a…
Astronomers View Black Hole Jets Deep Inside Perseus A
An international team of researchers has imaged newly forming jets of plasma from a massive black hole with unprecedented accuracy. Radio images made with a…
Scientists Predict the Structure and Morphology of the Primordial Magnetic Field
In the first fractions of a second after the birth of our universe, not only elementary particles and radiation, but also magnetic fields were generated….