Baryon acoustic oscillations, an artifact remaining from the Big Bang, can be used by scientists to measure cosmological distances regardless of how the distances are changing. Soon after the Big Bang, the beginning of our universe, all of the matter of the universe was packed densely into a much smaller space. The…
An asteroid recently came blazing through our solar system and it appears to be an interstellar visitor. The asteroid, dubbed A/2017 U1, would be the first interstellar object ever to be observed within our own solar system. A/2017 U1 caught the attention of astronomers because of its astounding speed. The quarter-mile…
A new field of science is born – astromaterial science. First mentioned in today’s paper, this scientific field studies materials of astronomical objects that are denser than materials commonly found on Earth. Scientists, M. E. Caplan and C. J. Horowitz, introduce the field of astromaterial science, starting…
Big News! Astrophysics receives a gift. Interferometers at LIGO and Virgo detected gravitational waves coming from two neutron stars merging. This detection not only supports Einstein's theory of relativity, but also teaches us even more about astrophysics that we didn't know before.
Astronomers have uncovered a supermassive black hole, weighing 17 billion suns, in the middle of nowhere. This nearly record-breaking supermassive black hole is in the center of a small galaxy cluster, which is a small town by universe standards. At the center of a given galaxy, there resides a supermassive black hole.…
1.76 billion light years away, two black holes smashed into one another, bearing one huge black hole the size of 53 suns. The explosion from this merger created enormous distortions in spacetime, known as gravitational waves. These gravitational ripples have been flying through the universe, and finally visited Earth.…
“How moving!” is what the Earth would say when it comes into contact with gravitational waves. Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicted these gravitational waves. These waves are disturbances in space caused by very massive objects and events. LIGO, (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave…
Our Sun is the nearest star to us. We have worshipped it, bathed in its light, and, of course, studied it. Scientists regularly use our Sun as a model for how similar stars should work. Thus, scientists develop the theory of stellar evolution (the study of the life cycles of stars) by observing our sun. Curiously,…
Radio astronomers working with a radio dish telescope detected something a bit unusual. They were seeing a very fast radio burst, faster and more irregular than any signal in the history of radio astronomy. This radio burst was coming at very short time scales, lasting just a few milliseconds. The signal was irregular,…
Scientists explain how your shoelaces randomly untie themselves while you're walking!
