How supernovae are helping uncover the mysteries of dark energy
Only 5 percent of the universe is made up of visible matter, while 27 percent is dark matter and 68 percent is dark energy.
Scientists are studying the mysteries of dark energy by analyzing data from the Dark Energy Survey, focusing on Type 1a supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe. [ more ]
Astronomers Find What May Be the Universe's Brightest Object With a Black Hole Devouring a Sun a Day
The brightest quasar in the universe discovered, 500 trillion times brighter than the sun, black hole 17 billion times more massive than the sun. [ more ]
Space Lasers Will Seek a New Kind of Gravitational Waves
Gravitational-wave observatories can detect the stirrings of early cosmic arrivals, such as black holes.
The European Space Agency has approved the space observatory LISA, which will search for specific frequencies of gravitational waves unseen by current ground-based detectors. [ more ]
Newly discovered cosmic megastructure challenges theories of the universe
Astronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, known as the Big Ring, which challenges existing theories of the universe.
The Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3 billion light years and is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons. [ more ]
The Universe in a lab: Testing alternate cosmology using a cloud of atoms
Researchers in Germany have created a tabletop quantum field simulation to explore the possible features of the early Universe.
The simulation shows that it is possible to simulate a Universe with different curvatures, indicating that the curvature of the Universe might have been different at the beginning of its existence.
The study published in Nature involved studying three possible scenarios for the Universe's early expansion: constant, accelerated, and decelerated. [ more ]