Universe Expansion

Universe Expansion

Four different images of supernova remnants from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory
The first stars took tens or even hundreds of millions of years to form, and then died in the cosmic blink of an eye. Here's how.
An image of a star in space.
From how life emerged on Earth to why we dream, these unanswered questions continue to perplex scientists.
An artist's impression of a cluster of stars.
The Big Bang's hot glow faded away after only a few million years, leaving the Universe dark until the first stars formed. Oh, the changes!
The ring nebula in space.
The Universe is an amazing place. Under the incredible, infrared gaze of JWST, it's coming into focus better than ever before.
This description features an image of a black hole and an image of a spiral galaxy, breaking the barriers of 10 biggest physics astronomy lies.
Misinformation was extremely popular in 2023, as bad science often made global headlines. Learn the truth behind these 10 dubious stories.
fusion power
In our Universe, matter is made of particles, while antimatter is made of antiparticles. But sometimes, the physical lines get real blurry.
Digital artwork of celestial nebula texture applied to a tessellated shape on a purple grid background, where no stars existed.
Atomic nuclei form in minutes. Atoms form in hundreds of thousands of years. But the "dark ages" rule thereafter, until stars finally form.
Illustration of a spacecraft, an astronaut, and a planet against a dark purple background.
35mins
Kmele talked with a planetary scientist, a physicist, and a futurist, to understand how visionaries across disciplines are thinking about the future of our planet and humankind.
An image of Halley's comet in the sky.
On December 9, 2023, Halley's Comet reached aphelion: its farthest point from the Sun. As it returns, here are 10 facts you should know.
Image of a JWST deep field, showing a lensed cluster of galaxies containing the early black hole CEERS 1019
Since JWST first glimpsed the Universe, we've entered a new era in understanding the earliest objects in the Universe. What have we learned?
A diagram of a galaxy with a blue circle representing the first atoms in the middle.
The first elements in the Universe formed just minutes after the Big Bang, but it took hundreds of thousands of years before atoms formed.
a visualization showing the view from inside the inner event horizon of a Kerr black hole
The brilliant mind who discovered the spacetime solution for rotating black holes claims singularities don't physically exist. Is he right?
pulsar orbiting a low-mass star in an X-ray binary system
Nearly half of all stars are born in binary systems, with the most massive ones dying the fastest. It's not pretty for the "second" star.
An image of an ancient black hole
The Big Bang theory is not threatened, but astrophysicists have some explaining to do.
A composite image showing the sun in two different wavelengths of light, highlighting its dynamic surface, magnetic activity, and the first elements formed.
In the early stages of the hot Big Bang, there were only free protons and neutrons: no atomic nuclei. How did the first elements form from them?
A digital abstract composition with dynamic white lines and swirls on a black background, incorporating some blue rectangular shapes that appear to disappear like antimatter.
In the early stages of the hot Big Bang, matter and antimatter were (almost) balanced. After a brief while, matter won out. Here's how.
JADES galaxies
In 2022, Hubble owned the record for most distant galaxy. Today, that galaxy is down to the 9th most distant object. Thanks, JWST.
Diagram illustrating the phase transition between hadronic matter, where protons and neutrons are formed, and quark-gluon plasma as a function of temperature and density.
For a substantial fraction of a second after the Big Bang, there was only a quark-gluon plasma. Here's how protons and neutrons arose.
higgs event atlas detector CERN LHC
In the very early Universe, practically all particles were massless. Then the Higgs symmetry broke, and suddenly everything was different.
A diagram showing the difference between matter and antimatter.
In the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have existed. Why aren't they equal today?
A graphical representation illustrating the concept of the big bang and the subsequent expansion of the universe, depicted by a transition from a singular point of energy to a wide, grid-like spread of galaxies and celestial elements
When the hot Big Bang first occurred, the Universe reached a maximum temperature never recreated since. What was it like back then?
Visualization of the timeline of the universe, from the beginning big bang to the present.
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe became hot, dense, and filled with high-energy quanta all at once. Here's what it was like.
Diagram of the expanding universe concept with cosmic inflation, light cone, and time axis.
Cosmic inflation is the state that preceded and set up the hot Big Bang. Here's what the Universe was like during that time period.
An image of a nebula surrounded by stars, fine-tuned for life within its cosmic expanse.
Two of the answers add a dimension to physics that doesn’t belong there. Maybe we could call it "astrotheology."
Black outline of an atomic symbol with three intersecting ellipses on a solid blue background.
38mins
Our host Kmele went inside Fermilab, America’s premiere particle accelerator facility, to find out how the smallest particles in the universe can teach us about its biggest mysteries.
JWST supernova remnant Cas A NIRCam 16:9
In 1667, a core-collapse supernova happened right here in the Milky Way, invisible to all humans. ~350 years later, here's what JWST sees.
sun vs hd 12545 sunspot starspot temperature
When we look at our Sun, its properties are incredibly constant, varying by merely ~0.1% over time. But all stars don't play by those rules.
bound nuclear state
In our Universe, all stable atomic nuclei have protons in them; there's no stable "neutronium" at all. But what's the reason why?
colliding black holes
All matter particles can act as waves, and massless light waves show particle-like behavior. Can gravitational waves also be particle-like?