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Gravitational Lensing
If this newfound galaxy is just the tip of the iceberg, the entire Universe may fall into place. One of the greatest challenges for a scientist is that every time you […]
Our Universe cannot be described by normal matter alone. Vera Rubin’s work led the way. Ask an astrophysicist what our Universe is made of, and you’ll likely receive a shocking surprise. […]
When stars get ejected from galaxies within massive clusters, they go where the dark matter is. Dark matter is one of the greatest mysteries in the Universe, displaying its effects in […]
There aren’t any holes in the Universe at all. What actually exists is far more interesting. Somewhere, far away, if you believe what you read, there’s a hole in the […]
The solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, was the nail in the coffin of a Newtonian Universe. On May 29, 1919, the world changed forever. For hundreds of years, Isaac […]
The world’s greatest observatory can go no further with its current instrument set. The Hubble Space Telescope has provided humanity with our deepest views of the Universe ever. It has […]
How fast is the Universe expanding? The results might be pointing to something incredible. If you want to know how something in the Universe works, all you need to do […]
And what do we still have left to learn? The original idea of a black hole goes all the way back to 1783, when Cambridge scientist John Michell recognized that a […]
While the web of dark matter (purple) might seem to determine cosmic structure formation on its own, the feedback from normal matter (red) can severely impact galactic scales. Both dark […]
When two different techniques give two different results, either someone is wrong, or something incredible is happening. Imagine you were a scientist attempting to measure some property of the Universe. […]
With an assist from Einstein’s gravity and the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s the brightest quasar we’ve ever discovered. In astronomy, there are two types of questions to […]
Dark matter is one of the most puzzling, unintuitive concepts in all of physics. But we still need it. Our Universe isn’t like us. While we’re made of atoms, and other […]
Hubble holds the record, finding a galaxy when the Universe was just 3% it’s age. In just a few years, James Webb will shatter it. One of the great scientific lessons […]
Finding the particle we assume is responsible for dark matter has always been a guessing game. We guessed wrong. You can’t get mad at a team for trying the improbable, hoping […]
As the Event Horizon Telescope prepares to release its first results, we can expect not just one, but two black hole images. What does a black hole actually look like? For […]
NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory has shown us the Universe like nothing else ever before. When it comes to the Universe, it mainly generates X-rays through high-temperature heating. X-rays from Chandra reveal […]
These three reasons are why there’s no getting around the fact that astronomy needs the James Webb Space Telescope. Even the most powerful telescope in history, the Hubble Space Telescope, […]
Dark matter is our leading theory for a reason. New, detailed studies of the smallest galaxies could kill off the most studied alternative. When you look out at the Universe, […]
Different measurements of the Universe’s rate of expansion give inconsistent results. But this simple solution could fix everything. In 1915, Einstein’s theory of General Relativity gave us a brand new […]
The Universe is an enormous place, but we can’t see all the way back to the beginning. Here’s the latest record-breaker. No matter how far back we look in the […]
In General Relativity, even space and time themselves aren’t what they seem. Gravity might have been the first fundamental force ever discovered, but in many ways, it remains the least-well understood. […]
The picture itself is breathtaking. But what we learn is truly eye-opening. Galaxy clusters, like the massive one captured here by Hubble, PLCK G004.5–19.5, impress not just for their looks, […]
There have been a lot of public advocates from the “no dark matter” camp, getting lots of popular attention. But the Universe still needs dark matter. Here’s why. If you took […]
The Event Horizon Telescope has come online and taken its data. Now, we wait for the results. Black holes are some of the most incredible objects in the Universe. There are […]
No matter what the science says, there’s no excuse for cruel behavior to a colleague. Look out into the distant Universe as far as you possibly can, and you’ll come […]
If the gravity isn’t where the matter is, things get into trouble very, very quickly. The above image, a composite of optical data, X-ray data, and a reconstructed mass map, is […]
At just 3 billion years old, this galaxy should be blue and full of new, young stars. Instead, it’s already out of fuel. What gives? “This new insight may force us […]
Constant? Not-a-constant? Or is there a fundamental flaw in the way we’re doing business? This article was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity […]
You might think that it should be all black, but then how would we see it? “It is conceptually interesting, if not astrophysically very important, to calculate the precise apparent shape […]
If it’s the anti-version of normal matter, could it possibly fall “up”? This article was written by Sabine Hossenfelder of Backreaction. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity and […]