Measuring the Age of the Universe With Gravitational Waves
The single most important puzzle in today’s cosmology (the study of the universe as a whole) can be summarized in one question: How old is…
Astrophysics
Hubble Program Views Superflares From Young Red Dwarf Stars
The word “HAZMAT” describes substances that pose a risk to the environment, or even to life itself. Imagine the term being applied to entire planets,…
SOFIA Observations Reveal Possible Key to Black Hole Activity
Collimated jets provide astronomers with some of the most powerful evidence that a supermassive black hole lurks in the heart of most galaxies. Some of…
Physicist Details the Shape of a Symmetrical Wormhole
A RUDN physicist demonstrated how to describe the shape of any symmetrical wormhole – a black hole that theoretically can be a kind of a…
Astronomers Discover a Luminous Blue Kilonova, GRB150101B
On October 16, 2017, an international group of astronomers and physicists excitedly reported the first simultaneous detection of light and gravitational waves from the same…
Is There a Relationship Between AGN and Star Formation?
Most galaxies host a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at their nucleus (a supermassive black hole is one whose mass exceeds a million solar-masses.) A key…
‘Pulsar in a Box’ Reveals Surprising Picture of a Neutron Star
An international team of scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated “pulsar in a box” are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy…
Scientists Solve Recent Mystery at the Center of the Milky Way
Astronomers from Lund University in Sweden have now found the explanation to a recent mystery at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy: the high…
Scientists Find Evidence of ‘Orphan’ Gamma-Ray Bursts
Astronomers typically study objects that are visible night after night or explode suddenly, like supernovas, but Casey Law is scouring vast amounts of data in…
Scientists Develop New Way to Measure Earth’s Magnetic Field
Researchers in Canada, the United States and Europe have developed a new way to remotely measure Earth’s magnetic field—by zapping a layer of sodium atoms…
New Model Sheds Light on Spiraling Supermassive Black Holes
A new model is bringing scientists a step closer to understanding the kinds of light signals produced when two supermassive black holes, which are millions…
Black Holes Only Contain Small Percentage of the Universe’s Dark Matter
For one brief shining moment after the 2015 detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, astronomers held out hope that the universe’s mysterious dark…
Scientists Discover Why Some Supernova Explosions Produce More Manganese and Nickel
Researchers have found white dwarf stars with masses close to the maximum stable mass (called the Chandrasekhar mass) are likely to produce large amounts of…
Study Shows Sun-Like Stars Rotate Differentially
Like our sun, distant stars are rotating spheres of hot gas. Stars, however, do not rotate like solid spheres: regions at different latitudes rotate at…
Astronomers Measure Precise Rotation Pattern of Sun-Like Stars
Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi reveal that sun-like stars rotate up to two and a half times faster at the equator than at higher latitudes,…
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…
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…