dark matter

This tedious cosmic landscape exists because the universe really was boring once. Shortly after the Big Bang, and for hundreds of thousands of years after that, it was relentlessly dull. All that existed was a thick red-hot haze of particles, stretching for trillions upon trillions of kilometers and filling every point in the universe almost evenly, with minuscule differences in the density of matter between one spot and another. But as the universe expanded and cooled, gravity amplified those tiny differences. Slowly,…

To make maps of these structures, astronomers turn to individual stars. Each star’s composition records its birthplace, age, and natal ingredients, so studying starlight enables a form of galactic cartography—as well as genealogy. By situating stars in time and place, astronomers can retrace history and infer how the Milky Way was built, piece by piece, over billions of years.The first major effort to study the primordial Milky Way’s formation began in the 1960s, when Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell and Alan Sandage, who…

Scientists leading the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope mission have just released its breathtaking first science images, taken only four months after launch. These new space photos reveal spectacular snapshots of the vast structure of the cosmos, including a massive galaxy cluster in the Perseus constellation, an object nicknamed the “Hidden Galaxy,” an irregularly structured galaxy, a globular cluster packed with myriad stars, and the gorgeous Horsehead Nebula.Euclid mission leaders announced the first…

When theoretical physicists like myself say that we’re studying why the universe exists, we sound like philosophers. But new data collected by researchers using Japan’s Subaru telescope has revealed insights into that very question.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeThe Big Bang kick-started the universe as we know it 13.8 billion years ago. Many theories in particle physics suggest that for all the matter created at the universe’s conception, an equal amount of antimatter should have been created alongside…

Recently, the NASA James Webb Space Telescope spotted the farthest active supermassive black hole discovered so far. Incidentally, this black hole was also found to be smaller than any known in the early universe. This was just one of many discoveries that highlighted how mysterious the world of black holes is. Now, a NASA mission has found a supermassive black hole that is spraying a jet of highly powerful bursts of energy. And to make matters worse, the jet is directed at the Earth. These events are dubbed…

Scientists have recently made a remarkable discovery about Galaxy NGC 1277, which is located within the Perseus Cluster some 240 million light-years away from us. A group of scientists, led by researcher Sebastien Comeron from IAC and the University of La Laguna (ULL), discovered something fascinating about the Galaxy NGC 1277. Unlike most big galaxies, which have an invisible substance called dark matter, NGC 1277 seems to be an exception as it has none! It's the first time such a massive galaxy, much bigger than our…

The James Webb Space Telescope may have captured the evidence of "dark stars". It has spotted three objects which were initially identified last December as some of the universe's earliest-known galaxies but researchers say that they might actually be humongous dark stars.What are dark starsIt is a well-known fact that the sun and other ordinary stars are powered by the fusion of atoms. But dark stars run on mysterious stuff called dark matter. Scientists have been looking for evidence of such a type of star, which was…

Astronomers looking at ancient light seen by the Webb Space Telescope have found three pinpricks that they think could be “dark stars,” theoretical objects powered by dark matter.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeDark matter makes up about 27% of the universe; its partner in ambiguity, dark energy, makes up about 68%. You can do the math: we know stunningly little of what makes up the universe and how it behaves. It’s in that zone of cosmic uncertainty that Webb’s latest targets pop up. The team’s research…

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected three luminous objects that could potentially be "dark stars." These hypothetical objects are believed to be powered by the annihilation of dark matter particles and could surpass the size and brightness of our sun. First Observations of Dark StarsAccording to an official release, Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin, expressed her excitement about the discovery, stating, "Discovering a new type of star is fascinating on its own, but…

A European space telescope blasted off Saturday on a quest to explore the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.SpaceX launched the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope toward its ultimate destination 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away, the Webb Space Telescope's neighborhood. It will take a month to get there and another two months before it starts its ambitious six-year survey this fall. Flight controllers in Germany declared success nearly an hour into the flight, applauding and…