Get Ready for the First Pictures of a Black Hole’s Event Horizon
The Event Horizon Telescope should give us our first picture of a Black Hole in the beginning of 2018.
Dark Energy Illuminated By Largest Galactic Map Ten Years In The Making
After a decade of research, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey has released the most detailed 3D map of the Universe to date
New ‘Einstein Ring’ Discovered By Dark Energy Camera
A rare object called an Einstein Ring has been discovered by a team in the Stellar Populations group at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain. An Einstein Ring is a specific type of gravitational lensing. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicted the phenomena of gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing tells us that instead …
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Dwarf Dark Matter Galaxy Hides In Einstein Ring
The discovery of a Dwarf Dark Galaxy addresses the Missing Satellite Problem, and tells us we’re on the right track in our understanding of the Universe, and Dark Matter’s role in it.
Gravitational Waves and How They Distort Space
It’s official: on February 11, 10:30 EST, there will be a big press conference about gravitational waves by the people running the gravitational wave detector LIGO.
Who was Albert Einstein?
At the end of the millennium, Physics World magazine conducted a poll where they asked 100 of the world’s leading physicists who they considered to be the top 10 greatest scientist of all time. The number one scientist they identified was Albert Einstein, with Sir Isaac Newton coming in second. Beyond being the most famous …
Who Was Sir Isaac Newton?
The 17th century was an auspicious time for the sciences, with groundbreaking discoveries being made in astronomy, physics, mechanics, optics, and the natural sciences. At the center of all this was Sir Isaac Newton, the man who is widely recognized as being one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key …
10 Amazing Facts About Black Holes
Imagine matter packed so densely that nothing can escape. Not a moon, not a planet and not even light. That’s what black holes are — a spot where gravity’s pull is huge, ending up being dangerous for anything that accidentally strays by. But how did black holes come to be, and why are they important? …
Astronomers Poised to Capture Image of Supermassive Milky Way Black Hole
Scientists have long suspected that supermassive black holes (SMBH) reside at the center of every large galaxy in our universe. These can be billions of times more massive than our sun, and are so powerful that activity at their boundaries can ripple throughout their host galaxies. In the case of the Milky Way galaxy, this …
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“Spotters Guide” for Detecting Black Hole Collisions
When it comes to the many mysteries of the Universe, a special category is reserved for black holes. Since they are invisible to the naked eye, they remain visibly undetected, and scientists are forced to rely on “seeing” the effects their intense gravity has on nearby stars and gas clouds in order to study them. …
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