dark matter

In classical physics, a vacuum is a total void—a true manifestation of nothingness. But quantum physics says that empty space isn’t really empty. Instead, it’s buzzing with “virtual” particles blipping in and out of existence too quickly to be detected. Scientists know that these virtual particles are there because they measurably tweak the qualities of regular particles.One key property these effervescent particles change is the miniscule magnetic field generated by a single electron, known as its magnetic moment. In…

When we think of the Big Bang, we think loud, hot, and bright. But was it followed by a colder, darker shadow?Five-sixths of the universe seems to be made up of a mysterious substance called “dark matter.” Until now, physicists have assumed dark matter was created in the same flash of heat that jump-started the universe. But dark matter lives in a kind of parallel, shadow world, barely interacting with the regular matter that makes up everything we can see, feel, and observe. Maybe it was created in a kind of “shadow” Big…

Behold the limitless, crowded cosmos. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Survey has put out its latest data release, increasing the size of the largest 2D sky map.The survey’s purpose is to improve our understanding of dark energy by mapping how the universe has expanded over the last 12 billion years. (The universe itself is about 13.77 billion years old.) To do that, the survey aggregates data collected by telescopes around the world and runs them through powerful Department of Energy…

Researchers used data from the Dark Energy Survey and the South Pole Telescope to re-calculate the total amount and distribution of matter in the universe. They found that there’s about six times as much dark matter in the universe as there is regular matter, a finding consistent with previous measurements.But the team also found that the matter was less clumped together than previously thought, a finding detailed in a set of three papers, all published this week in Physical Review D.The Dark Energy Survey observes…

A few years ago, physicist Ivan Vorobyev’s team at the Large Hadron Collider began producing an exotic form of antimatter known as antihelium. Antimatter is that elusive substance that annihilates upon meeting regular matter, and antihelium is the antimatter twin of the classic helium atom, the stuff you find in party balloons. While no human has ever conclusively found a naturally occurring antihelium particle on Earth, it could be key to answering one of the biggest outstanding mysteries in physics: the nature of dark…

Sometimes we must look to the heavens to understand our own planet. In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler’s insight that planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun led to a deeper understanding of gravity, the force that determines Earth’s tides. In the 19th century, scientists studied the color of sunlight, whose distinctive properties helped reveal the quantum structure of the atoms that make up the star—and all matter around us. In 2017, the detection of gravitational waves showed that much of the gold, platinum,…

Studying an atomic clock on-board a spacecraft inside the orbit of Mercury and very near to the Sun might be the trick to uncovering the nature of dark matter. Studying an atomic clock on-board a spacecraft inside the orbit of Mercury and very near to the Sun might be the trick to uncovering the nature of dark matter, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy. Dark matter makes up more than 80 per cent of mass in the universe, but it has so far evaded detection on Earth, despite decades of experimental…

In 2016, astronomers led by Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University published a bombshell paper claiming the discovery of a galaxy so dim, yet so broad and heavy, that it must be almost entirely invisible. They estimated that the galaxy, dubbed Dragonfly 44, is 99.99 percent dark matter.A heated debate ensued about Dragonfly 44’s properties that remains unresolved. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 similarly big but faint galaxies have turned up.Dragonfly 44 and its ilk are known as ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). While they can be…

The first galaxies may have formed far earlier than previously thought, according to observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. The first galaxies may have formed far earlier than previously thought, according to observations from the James Webb Space Telescope that are reshaping astronomers' understanding of the early universe.Researchers using the powerful observatory have now published papers in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, documenting two exceptionally bright, exceptionally distant galaxies,…

A crop from NASA’s “Dark Energy” poster.Illustration: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe universe is a spooky place, filled with zombie stars, invisible matter, and monster galaxies lurking in the silent darkness of the cosmos. In order to pay tribute to the weird mysteries that surround us, NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Office produced a set of illustrationsmeant to look like vintage horror movie posters. All draw inspiration from real cosmic phenomenon like dark matter, gamma ray bursts and exoplanets with hellish conditions.…