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Enormous Telescope to Be Completed Soon

The volcanic dome of Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, has been recognized for many years as one of the most suited locations for building ground-based telescopes. Its unique vantage point allows telescopes built here to make out details of the Universe that can only be seen from only a handful of other places around the world. ...

17 November 2009
18:41 GMT

LHC to Restart Next Week

Next to the International Space Station (ISS), the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is arguably the most complex and amazing human scientific project ever constructed. Its main goal is to recreate the conditions that existed just a few fractions of a second after the beginning of the Universe, immediately after the event ...

15 November 2009
05:30 GMT

Early Galaxies Formed Stars at Very High Speeds

According to scientists at the Durham University, the galaxies in the early Universe were highly active when it came to forming new stars, and generated about 50 of the new suns every year. The experts determined that previous estimates about the setup inside these galaxies were a bit off, in that their ability to fo...

11 November 2009
01:13 GMT

Galaxies from the Universe's 'Infancy' Discovered

According to the standard cosmological model, the Big Bang – the event that created our Universe – took place about 13.7 billion years ago. After that, the Cosmos began expanding and producing all types of structures, which would eventually differentiate in things we know today, such as galaxy, clusters a...

7 November 2009
04:12 GMT

Dark Matter vs the Modified Theory of Newtonian Dynamics

The standard cosmological model holds that there is a type of matter known as dark matter permeating the Universe, which accounts for the massive discrepancies that exist between how much matter the Universe has, and the amount it should have, according to predictions. Astronomers hypothesized that dark matter should...

6 November 2009
02:40 GMT

Time Cannot Be Derived from Standard Physics

The nature of time has remained something that has fascinated humans since the dawn of time, and the first division of a day into smaller intervals. Many have wondered about how to split it as accurately as possible, whereas others have been wondering if the concept is derived from physical laws or not. Over the last...

3 November 2009
17:01 GMT

The Cosmic 'Skeleton' Revealed

The “Cosmic Web” is a concept that is often used to refer to the underlying support structure that our Universe has, which we cannot see with our eyes or scientific instruments but know it's there. This web, which is charged with keeping galaxies together, and at times channelling them into superclus...

3 November 2009
07:01 GMT

New Evidence That Dark Matter Exists

A new international astronomical cooperation effort, led by experts at the Cardiff University, in the United Kingdom, has brought to light new evidence that the standard cosmological model in use today, which includes the existence of dark matter and dark energy, is in tune with reality. The proof was collected using...

3 November 2009
03:34 GMT

Dark Energy Mission in Danger of Scrubbing

The Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) is a collaborative effort among a number of agencies in the United States and Europe, and was originally scheduled to scout for signs of dark energy, the force believed to be behind the ever-accelerating expansion of the Universe. NASA and the US Department of Energy (DOE) fail to...

28 October 2009
03:01 GMT

Discovering Random Astrophysical Phenomena

Over the next decade, as new-generation telescopes will be built around the world, scientists will need to keep an eye on all datasets that come out of these machines, interpret them, analyze them, and then draw conclusions based on them. But everyone agrees that this is a fantasy, something that will be impossible t...

27 October 2009
07:20 GMT

Roadrunner Models Unseen Universe's Origins

Scientists at the US Department Of Energy's (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory have recently started running their model of the unseen Universe on the world's fastest supercomputer, the IBM Roadrunner. The team that manages the simulation is part of the Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmo...

27 October 2009
06:53 GMT

Chandra Discovers Most Distant Galaxy Cluster

Astronomers handling the Chandra Space Telescope, one of NASA's four Great Observatories, have recently announced they they've discovered one of the most distant clusters of galaxies in the Universe, located at a distance of about 10.2 billion light-years away from our planet. According to the experts, the ...

23 October 2009
02:26 GMT

Number of Universes in the Multiverse Calculated

Over recent years, a growing number of astronomers has come to believe that the Big Bang did not create just a single Universe, as in the one we inhabit, but many different ones, which only appear locally uniform. The Multiverse theory is catching wings fast, and physicists have recently taken another step for bringi...

16 October 2009
03:20 GMT

Looking Back into the History of Universe

Understanding the current state of the Universe has less to do with analyzing the way things are now, and more to do with finding out how things were in the early days, when the first galaxies and black holes appeared from the chaos that existed after the Big Bang. For this very purpose, experts with the Sloan Digita...

14 October 2009
15:51 GMT

BOSS Begins Its Quest for Dark Energy

During the night of September 14-15, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) experienced its first light, in an event that marked the beginning of a new type of quest for dark matter. The new method relies on the now-emerging technology known as baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), which may have the ability...

2 October 2009
05:37 GMT

Black Hole Behemoths May Be Destroying the Universe

The concept of entropy refers to a quantity used to measure chaos. Entropy has been on the rise in the Universe ever since the Big Bang, and a new scientific study, taking into account the latest astronomical data, has evidenced that massive black holes at the center of galaxies are the largest contributors to this i...

2 October 2009
05:05 GMT

Kepler Carries Human Messages into Space

The Kepler Space Telescope, launched earlier this year, is, arguably, one of the best telescopes in the world today, especially when it comes to detecting small exoplanets around other stars. Its mirrors are high-tech enough to observe periodical variations in a star's brightness, which may only be caused by a p...

2 October 2009
02:56 GMT

Dark Matter Detection-Device Prototype Created

Though no clear evidence documenting the existence of dark matter was ever produced, astronomers believe it exists because, if not, they simply cannot explain phenomena in the Universe. Since the type of matter was first proposed, a number of years ago, all sorts of instruments have been mounted on telescopes, in an ...

25 September 2009
19:01 GMT

Of Cosmic Bubbles and Inflation Rates

It has become widely accepted among scientists that our Universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old. It's also known that the diameter of the observable Universe measures at least 93 billion light-years. However, if this is true, there is a hitch. In 13.7 billion light-years, light can only travel 13.7 billion li...

25 September 2009
09:05 GMT

Hubble Photographs Most Distant Known Galaxies

Scientists with alloted observation hours on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have recently announced that they've photographed the most distant galaxies ever observed with a telescope. Shuttle Atlantis' mission to the orbit-based observatory translated into a new batch of cameras and scientific equipment, ...

17 September 2009
21:41 GMT

Establishing Big Bang Gravitational Wave Limits

Through accurate scientific analyses of datasets collected in 2005 and 2007, experts at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration have managed to establish the most accurate limits on how gravitational waves formed and extended throughout the U...

20 August 2009
04:04 GMT

Neutrino Conference to Determine the Faith of the Universe

While the Big Bang theory is still the most agreed-upon idea on how the Universe formed, the final faith of the Cosmos is still a subject of hot debate among astronomers and physicists. While some say that it will expand to a point where it will become a dark, empty void, others claim that it will eventually contract...

17 August 2009
03:29 GMT

Early Black Holes Prevented Star Formation

According to a new complex computer simulation, it would appear that the earliest black holes that where formed after the Big Bang were in fact a lot smaller than the giants they are today. Also, the simulation revealed that older theories, which held that the formations accumulated mass quickly and gobbled up matter...

15 August 2009
03:04 GMT

Planck Starts Observing the Beginning of the Universe

The recently launched Planck telescope has just begun observing the early Universe, accumulating background radiation that was most likely created when the Universe first sprung into being. The mission is conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA), with vast collaboration from NASA. In addition to the observatory, ...

14 August 2009
10:33 GMT

The First Black Holes Wreaked Havoc in Their Surroundings

Scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have recently completed running numerous simulations of how the earliest black holes that appeared in the Universe may have looked like, and how they could have influenced the development of other forms of matter. Their investigation revealed that the structures ...

11 August 2009
06:45 GMT

Universal Theory of the Universe in the Works

The General Theory of Relativity, developed by the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein, has been at the forefront of modern physics, describing the way gravity, space and time interact. However, it does not account for the movement of elementary particle. The theory of quantum mechanics was devised around 1920, and e...

10 August 2009
06:46 GMT

GEMS Satellite to Analyze Cosmic X-ray Source Polarization

The NASA-operated Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, is currently buzzing with excitement, as engineers are working around the clock to complete a new satellite. Dubbed the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS), the instrument will systematically measure the polarization of cosmic X-ra...

5 August 2009
06:15 GMT

Quantum Gods by Victor J. Stenger - Book Review

It was only last night that I finished reading Victor J. Stenger's new book, “Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness,” and, boy, I can tell you for sure that my understanding of quantum physics was a bit off before. In fact, it was not necessarily wrong, as it was featu...

25 July 2009
03:03 GMT

The First Stars Were in Binary Systems

Experts from the US Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the Michigan State University, and the Stanford University have recently managed to use computer models to simulate the way in which the first twin stars in the very early Universe were formed. Stretching as far back as 200 mi...

10 July 2009
03:01 GMT

Quantum Mechanics Could Link Humans with the Universe

Over recent years, many popular books and movies have made us wonder whether we are in touch with a “cosmic consciousness,” through the mechanisms of quantum physics. Butterfly effects, separate realities, and collective consciousnesses are all themes that have been exploited to the full, albeit not alway...

26 June 2009
10:59 GMT

Astrobiologists Think Life May Be 12 Billion Years Old

It is widely accepted that the Universe exploded into existence some 13.7 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created the first light and the first amounts of matter, which then immediately started expanding. Over millions of years, galaxies and black holes began to differentiate, and, after the reionization stage e...

18 June 2009
19:01 GMT

New Math Theories Could Hint at the Origin of the Universe

Since the beginning of mankind, people have been wondering where we came from and where we are headed, if we were made or if we evolved, the same questions that now spark heated debates among astronomers, as well as between creationists and evolutionists. In an attempt to answer this question, Kansas State Universit...

10 June 2009
08:40 GMT

European Experts Handle Largest Virtual Telescope in the World

Bigger is always better in astronomy, experts say, and the phrase especially holds true for telescopes. Making use of new technologies that allow for virtually instantaneous connections between any points on Earth, experts from more than 16 observatories on six continents have joined their resources together, and hav...

9 June 2009
18:41 GMT

Finding Out Hubble's Constant One Step Closer

One of the primary and most broad goals of astronomy is to determine the speed at which the Universe is expanding, a phenomenon that was first described by Edwin Hubble. In honor of the great scientist, modern-day experts have termed the constant that gives the Universe expansion speed Hubble's constant. At this...

9 June 2009
15:41 GMT

Astronomers See Galactic 'Backbone' of the Universe

Understanding how the first galaxies formed in the earliest Universe is one of the main goals of astronomy, as the knowledge could provide researchers with a great many answers on why galaxies behave and interact the way they do today. By using a special camera known as AzTEC, experts from an international initiative...

21 May 2009
10:55 GMT

Herschel and Planck Launch Today

Today, the ESA-operated Guiana Space Center, in South America, will launch an Ariane 5 delivery system, which will carry two new space telescopes, Herschel and Planck, to a transfer orbit. After several delays, the mission was finally confirmed a few days ago, and everything looks set for today's launch. The two...

14 May 2009
03:08 GMT

The Universe Comes to Android via Google Sky Map

Google announced on Tuesday the launch of a new application for the Android operating system, namely Google Sky Map, which, a post on the Google official blog says, is able to transform a mobile phone into a “dynamic window on the night sky.” Basically, the handsets would provide users with a map of the b...

13 May 2009
11:48 GMT

The Universe Froze 11.5 Billion Years Ago

In reality, it's very difficult to predict or estimate what happened to the Universe in its earliest days, but computer and mathematical models have over the years yielded numerous interesting theories, which can neither be proven, nor disproved by experts. The most recent model that emerged following complex si...

9 May 2009
10:01 GMT

Dark Energy Made Difficult to Explain by the Hubble Constant

The Hubble Constant is, in astronomical terms, the value given to the speed at which the Universe expands. It's unknown at this point, but mathematicians and physicists have narrowed its possible range down to about a five percent uncertainty rate. And while this is good news for those seeking to learn exactly h...

8 May 2009
18:31 GMT

Astronomical Theories Need Reshaping

Over the last 20 years or so, astronomers have been continuously looking for the mysterious dark matter, the force that some believe is the engine of the Universe. The vast majority of astrophysicists consider that the stuff is what drives galaxies into clusters and what keeps them in place, providing a scaffolding o...

6 May 2009
05:09 GMT

Milky Way's Black Hole Revealed

Astronomers from the Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics have just put forth the most compelling evidence to date that a supermassive black hole is located at the core of the Milky Way. They argue that the large amounts of matter, energy and light that are vanishing in the middle of the galaxy can only go ...

1 May 2009
02:01 GMT

Hundreds of Black Holes May 'Lurk' in the Milky Way

In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics argue that hundreds or thousands of rogue black holes could exist in the Milky Way, and that they could also reside all around us. Theories relat...

30 April 2009
16:31 GMT

Swift Finds 13-Billion-Year-Old Gamma-Ray Burst

The NASA American space agency has recently identified, through its SWIFT satellite, the oldest-ever-detected gamma-ray burst (GRB) in the Universe, originating some 630 million years after the Big Bang. This means that the star that collapsed to generate the GRB ended its life cycle a good 370 million years before t...

29 April 2009
03:22 GMT

Molecule Chirality Could Point to Alien Life

Over the recent years, an increased number of concepts referring to the “handedness of life” have begun to appear, and in areas of research few would have thought possible. For instance, astronomers are now working with scientists on the creation of a new means of looking for life on other planets, throug...

28 April 2009
20:01 GMT

Astronomers Wonder Where All Dark Matter Is

Ever since the standard model was first created, depicting the interactions between all forms of matter, physicists who created it, and all those who came afterwards, drew attention to one of its major drawbacks, namely that it erased us all from existence. That is to say, it holds that matter and antimatter annihila...

28 April 2009
08:57 GMT

Circular Causes and Consequences Paradox

One of the most widely recognized paradoxes of time travel is the circular causality problem, which basically states that the consequence of a phenomenon cannot be said to be its root cause. If that were true, it would shamelessly violate all laws of physics and time, and could, at least in theory, lead to the destru...

25 April 2009
07:26 GMT

NASA Uses Fermi Data to Create All-Sky Movie (w/video)

The new film created by the NASA American space agency makes clever use of scientific observations made by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) in its first 87 days of operations, and depicts the Universe in a manner that has rarely been seen before. Active galaxies near and far flare up as the time passes, and th...

25 April 2009
04:06 GMT

Dark Matter May Have Reionized the Universe

Theories about what happened in the early Universe, after the Big Bang, exist in abundance, but the issue is that no one knows for sure what forces acted on the hot ionized gases that were formed following the greatest explosion ever. That is to say, after the first moment, the Universe was filled with ionized gas, w...

24 April 2009
08:56 GMT

Water Vapors Found in Black Hole Jet Emissions

A US-European astronomy team has recently announced at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting that it has discovered water spewing out of a black hole, at the center of a galaxy located billions of light-years away. The radio wavelength emissions that were observed in 2007 with the 100-meter German ...

23 April 2009
06:43 GMT

Largest Object in the Early Universe Detected

A newly found gas blob, discovered at the very start of the Universe, has recently been identified as being at least ten times more massive than the second largest class of such objects, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs. The new formation has been discovered more than 12.9 billion light-years away, which means that it was ...

23 April 2009
03:34 GMT


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