Freedman, Kennicutt, and Mould's work resolves decades-long debate on the Hubble constant, revealing the universe is 14 billion years old. This finding enables scientists to estimate the density of the universe and understand its fate.
A new dark energy model proposes a cosmological phase transition, where the universe 'froze' about 11.5 billion years ago, causing it to expand at an ever-increasing rate. This theory attributes dark energy to a field dubbed quintessence, which acts as an antigravity agent and is spread uniformly throughout space.
The new value of the Hubble constant is 74.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec, derived from observations of Cepheid variables in seven galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope. This refined measurement provides a more precise understanding of dark energy's nature and its role in accelerating the universe's expansion.
The CU-Boulder instrument, part of NASA's Hubble Servicing mission, will probe the universe's evolution from its perch on the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists aim to reconstruct the physical conditions and evolution of the early universe by gathering information from ultraviolet light.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph will explore the 'cosmic web', a rarefied network of hot gas lanes connecting galaxies, and map the structure of the universe. Astronomers hope to detail the evolution of the large-scale structure and understand how galaxies formed.
New calculations suggest hundreds of massive rogue black holes are left over from the early universe, potentially wandering the Milky Way's outer reaches. These relics could provide clues about galaxy formation history and the formation of black holes in the early universe.
A team of astronomers has discovered the most distant object in the universe, a gamma-ray burst located approximately 13 billion light-years away. This explosive event, dubbed GRB 090423, occurred when the universe was just 630 million years old and is providing valuable insights into the early universe.
Astronomers have discovered a gamma-ray burst from a star that died 630 million years ago, marking the most distant cosmic explosion ever seen. The burst, dubbed GRB 090423, is approximately 13 billion light-years away.
Researchers have discovered a mysterious giant space blob, Himiko, that existed 800 million years ago, stretching 55 thousand light years across and raising questions about its physical origins.
Scientists reveal that half of the Universe's starlight originates from young, star-forming galaxies billions of light-years away. The discovery was made using a two-tonne telescope carried by a balloon, and analyzes data from the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope (BLAST) project.
NRL researchers join a team to develop a telescope on the Moon for studying an era of the young Universe, during the first 500 million years after the Big Bang. The project aims to detect signals from hydrogen atoms in the Dark Ages, providing insights into the formation and evolution of the modern Universe.
Astronomers have identified a new type of dwarf galaxy, formed out of pristine gas without dark matter. Led by Johns Hopkins University, the discovery was made using the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and suggests that these galaxies may be common throughout the early universe.
Sandra Faber is being honored for her extraordinary advances in understanding the properties of distant galaxies, dark matter, large-scale structure, and black holes. Her innovative leadership has driven significant discoveries in modern cosmology, including the role of dark matter in galaxy formation.
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss warns of a bleak future for the universe, driven by its flatness and the dominant form of energy in empty space. This shift in understanding has profound implications for our questions about the nature of reality.
Researchers using South Pole Telescope aim to detect extremely weak gravity waves produced by cosmic inflation. The detection could provide conclusive evidence for the theory, ruling out competing ideas for the universe's origin.
Researchers harness supercomputing to recreate how galaxies form, develop, and collapse. The most detailed recreation of the universe's evolution to date is created using computer simulations that incorporate black hole physics.
Researchers at Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology created simulations to predict galaxy formation and dark matter effects. The work aims to improve understanding of dark matter, a mysterious substance making up 80% of the Universe's mass.
The institute will continue its world-class research into antimatter and dark matter, extra space-time dimensions, and the Higgs boson. The new funding will also enhance computer facilities, create permanent academic appointments, and support UK phenomenology community members.
A Cornell-led team has observed dust forming around a dying star in a nearby galaxy, providing insights into the early universe and the evolution of galaxies. The discovery sheds new light on how cosmic dust was created in the universe's early stages.
The team found a cosmic puzzle that booms six times louder than predicted, ruling out origins from primordial stars and known radio sources. The source of this cosmic radio background remains a mystery, complicating efforts to detect the first stars in the universe.
A recent study suggests that supermassive black holes formed first and grew before their host galaxies. The ratio of black hole mass to galactic bulge mass is nearly constant across different galaxy sizes and ages. This finding implies that the growth of black holes and galaxies was an interactive process.
A team of UBC researchers found that a mysterious force known as dark energy is responsible for the acceleration of the Universe, contradicting a theory that suggested the Earth was near the center of a giant void. The study used data from various sources, including the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite.
Astronomers use gravitational lensing effect to magnify light from quasar MG J0414+0534, detecting water vapour at redshift 2.64, a time when the Universe was only a fifth of its current age
A team of Caltech researchers proposes a mathematical model explaining an anomaly in the universe's radiation and matter distribution. The model predicts more cold than hot spots in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, which could offer insights into what happened during inflation and potentially even what came before the Big Bang.
A team of Australian astronomers discovered a puzzling lack of hydrogen gas in distant galaxies, which contradicts expectations based on the Universe's life cycle. The observed absence may be due to the destruction of hydrogen by quasars' intense radiation, leaving behind only ionised particles.
Researchers used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory to study the Bullet Cluster, where two large clusters of galaxies collided. The results show that the antimatter fraction in the cluster is less than three parts per million, ruling out significant amounts of antimatter on scales of about 65 m...
A team of scientists used a natural cosmic lens to capture an image of a distant galaxy in the early Universe. The image shows a massive reservoir of gas and a supermassive black hole feeding a burst of star formation, indicating that the galaxy has collided with another.
Researchers have discovered two distant galaxies with massive black holes at their centers, challenging previous assumptions about the formation of these cosmic objects. The study reveals that these colossal black holes were present even 12 billion years ago, when the universe was just 1.7 billion years old.
Researchers at the University of Arizona and University of Queensland create a new form of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, which can spontaneously spin up into rotating vortices resembling microscopic quantum mechanical hurricanes. This phenomenon occurs when atoms in the gas cool to near absolute zero.
Researchers at Durham University and Caltech used gravitational lensing to study a young star-forming galaxy in the distant Universe, revealing its internal velocity structure and spiral disk. The findings provide insight into how the galaxy evolved into a present-day system like our Milky Way.
Researchers identified an unexpected motion in distant galaxy clusters, suggesting gravitational attraction beyond the observable universe. The 'dark flow' is constant out to a billion light-years and flies in the face of predictions from standard cosmological models.
The detection of GRB 080913 marks the most distant gamma-ray burst ever seen, occurring 12.8 billion light-years away. This finding reveals that the universe was less than one-seventh its present age when the star exploded.
The survey uses baryon acoustic oscillations to measure the expansion of the universe. It will double the volume of space in which red luminous galaxies are studied, observing 10,000 square degrees of sky out to redshifts of z = 0.7.
A $70 million CU-Boulder instrument will be installed on the Hubble Space Telescope in mid-October to study the 'fossil record' of gases in the early universe. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph will gather information from ultraviolet light, allowing scientists to reconstruct the physical condition and evolution of the early universe.
A Yale University astrophysicist has discovered an upper mass limit for black holes, which appear to curb their growth at around 10 billion times the mass of our Sun. This finding has implications for the study of galaxy formation and suggests that black holes may play a key role in regulating star formation.
The new calibration system uses a Nobel Prize-winning technology to create an extremely precise 'ruler' for spectrographs. This will enable astronomers to accurately measure the velocities of stars and galaxies, search for planets around other stars, and study the expansion of the Universe.
Researchers analyzed light from small galaxies to determine their masses, finding all dwarf galaxies had the same mass - 10 million times the mass of the sun. This discovery reveals a fundamental property of dark matter, a key component of the universe.
The University of Utah is joining the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey to map distant galaxies, understand galaxy evolution, and discover planets with suitable environments for life. The survey will also help scientists test theories about dark energy and explore the mysteries of the universe.
A computer simulation reveals the formation of the first stars in the universe, showing how dark matter and gas interacted to create these ancient celestial bodies. The study provides insight into the origins of life and planets, highlighting the importance of stellar elements in our bodies.
J. Richard Bond is honored for his theoretical framework to interpret the observed inhomogeneities in the Big Bang's fossil radiation and understand galaxy evolution. His research has helped us transition from a nearly featureless early Universe to the structured world of galaxies, stars, and planets.
Case Western Reserve University researchers discover that gravitational radiation can be produced by a mechanism other than inflation, which could redefine the concept of a 'smoking gun' for early universe theories. This finding strengthens motivation for detecting primordial gravitational radiation, which is crucial for understanding ...
The galaxy proto-cluster LBG-2377 is the farthest ever detected, offering a glimpse into the universe's infancy when its light was emitted. Scientists believe it may grow into a massive galaxy cluster, born from a catastrophic event with gas and matter collapsing.
Researchers investigated B-meson decays to understand the origin of matter's dominance over antimatter in the universe. The study reveals a significant discrepancy between theoretical models and observations, suggesting the presence of a new principle of physics.
A NASA satellite has detected a record-breaking gamma ray burst explosion halfway across the universe. The explosion was seen with the naked eye from Earth, shattering previous records and providing insights into the universe's most distant objects.
Scientists confirm 1966 prediction that most energetic particles in the universe rarely reach Earth at full strength due to cosmic microwave background radiation. The GZK cutoff is a suppression of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, suggesting they come from galaxies beyond 150 million light years away.
The Naval Research Laboratory will design a lunar telescope, the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer (DALI), to study the last unexplored epoch in the Universe's history. The telescope aims to detect signals from hydrogen atoms in the Dark Ages, which can provide insights into the first stars, galaxies, and modern Universe.
The Virginia Tech group is exploring the possibility of an extra dimension, curled up like the universe at the Big Bang. They plan to detect small primordial black holes that produce radio pulses using a new Transient Array radio telescope.
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has revealed a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeating the universe and provides evidence that the first stars took more than half a billion years to create a cosmic fog. The new data also places tight constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe's first trillionth of a second.
Researchers at Carnegie Institution find unusual new form of carbon in meteorites, which could affect measurements of the universe's expansion and dark energy models. The discovery may have implications for understanding Type1a supernovae and the accelerating expansion of the universe.
The Lunar Array for Radio Cosmology (LARC) project aims to explore the 'Dark Ages' of the universe when stars and galaxies first formed. The new telescopes will study cosmic background radiation and test current theories about the universe's formation.
Astronomers have measured the distribution and motions of thousands of galaxies in the distant Universe using ESO's VLT. This study provides a powerful way to tackle the mystery of dark energy, with results supporting the simplest form of dark energy.
Researchers used supercomputing power to simulate the early Universe and identify potential methods for measuring dark energy. The study's findings will help design a proposed satellite mission called SPACE, which aims to unveil the nature of dark energy and its role in the Universe's accelerating expansion.
The Hubble servicing mission, scheduled for August 2008, aims to equip the telescope with new instruments, including the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Wide Field Camera 3. These upgrades will enhance Hubble's capabilities to explore the universe, studying dark matter, dark energy, and planetary atmospheres.
Astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. The newly discovered galaxies are small and have fewer stars, but were fertile breeding grounds for new stars that ionized hydrogen atoms and emitted Lyman alpha light.
A new CU-Boulder-led supercomputer simulation models a region of the universe spanning 1.5 billion light-years, aiming to uncover hidden gas clouds containing missing baryons. The study may enable detection of these 'filaments' using future telescopes like the South Pole Telescope and Cornell-Caltech Atacama Telescope.
Three quarters of the universe is dark energy, a mysterious substance that repels gravity. New space missions and improved observation methods will help uncover its secrets.
Researchers at University of Cambridge and Institute of Physics of Cantabria propose existence of cosmic defects called textures, predicted by particle physics theories. Textures are defects in vacuum left over from hot early universe, observed as hot and cold spots in cosmic microwave background radiation.
Researchers have found an unusual cold spot in the cosmic microwave background that could be caused by a cosmic defect created just after the Big Bang. The discovery provides a potential window into understanding the fundamental nature of elementary particles and forces.
Cosmology@Home allows people worldwide to participate in cutting-edge cosmology research by donating their unused computing cycles. Participating computers calculate the observable predictions of millions of theoretical models with different parameters, which are then compared with actual data.
Research suggests that dilaton effects could reduce the abundance of stable dark matter particles like neutralinos by a factor of ten. This finding has implications for supersymmetric searches in colliders and challenges standard cosmology theories.