The Hardest Known Substance in the Universe – Nuclear Pasta
A team of scientists has calculated the strength of the material deep inside the crust of neutron stars and found it to be the strongest…
Astrophysics
Looking Back in Time to Watch Massive Black Hole Formation
Black holes form when stars die, allowing the matter in them to collapse into an extremely dense object from which not even light can escape….
Hubble Detects Never-Before-Seen Features Around a Neutron Star
An unusual infrared light emission from a nearby neutron star detected by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope could indicate new features never before seen. One possibility…
Astronomers Detect Most-Distant Galactic “Wind” of Molecules To Date
Astronomers using ALMA, with the aid of a gravitational lens, have detected the most-distant galactic “wind” of molecules ever observed, seen when the universe was…
New Study Completely Changes Our Understanding of Stellar Evolution
At the end of its life, a red supergiant star explodes in a hydrogen-rich supernova. By comparing observation results to simulation models, an international research…
New Method Uses Meteorites to Investigate Supernovae
An international team of researchers has proposed a new method to investigate the inner workings of supernovae explosions. This new method uses meteorites and is…
Million-Fold Increase in the Power of ‘Chorus Waves’ Near Jupiter’s Moons
The planet Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field which forms the largest object in the solar physics. Observations of Jupiter’s magnetosphere in the 1990s…
ALMA Reveals Monster Galaxy in the Early Universe
Astronomers obtained the most detailed anatomy chart of a monster galaxy located 12.4 billion light-years away. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the team…
Researchers Develop New Technique to Forecast Geomagnetic Storms
The Earth’s magnetic field extends from pole to pole and is strongly affected by solar wind from the sun. This “wind” is a stream of…
The 15 Greatest Discoveries From NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spent 15 years in space. In honor of this anniversary, 15 of Spitzer’s greatest discoveries are featured in a gallery….
Why This Supermassive Black Hole Appears to Move
The study, carried out by two researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, shows that the “change in position” observed in the nucleus of…
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Still Going Strong After 15 Years
Initially scheduled for a minimum 2.5-year primary mission, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has gone far beyond its expected lifetime — and is still going strong…
Primitive Meteorite Brings Scientists Closer to Understanding Solar Evolution
A team of researchers from Waseda University, the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Harvard University, and the National Institute…
Astronomers Reveal Previously Unknown Details About The Milky Way
The Milky Way galaxy has died once before and we are now in what is considered its second life. Calculations by Masafumi Noguchi (Tohoku University)…
Ancient Quasars Help Confirm Quantum Entanglement
New results are among the strongest evidence yet for “spooky action at a distance.” Last year, physicists at MIT, the University of Vienna, and elsewhere…
Physicists Identify Some of the Oldest Galaxies in the Universe
Physicists have discovered that some of the faintest satellite galaxies orbiting our own Milky Way galaxy are amongst the very first that formed in our…
ALMA Displays Capabilities, Reveals Cosmic Steam Jets and Molecules
A team of scientists using the highest-frequency capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has uncovered jets of warm water vapor streaming away from…
Scientists Discover a Massive Galaxy Cluster Hiding in Plain Sight
MIT scientists have uncovered a sprawling new galaxy cluster hiding in plain sight. The cluster, which sits a mere 2.4 billion light years from Earth,…