Colliding Neutron Stars Could Help Measure the Expansion of the Universe
A new study presents a novel and independent method for measuring cosmic expansion using kilonova
It's Confirmed. M87's Black Hole is Actually Spinning
The supermassive black hole at the heart of M87 was the target of the Event Horizon Telescope, revealing the area around its event horizon for the first time. Although an accretion disk surrounded the black hole, astronomers weren’t sure if the black hole itself was rotating. They imaged the region with radio telescopes and discovered the remnants of polar jets, showing that the black hole’s rotation axis had undergone precession over time. This precession indicates that the black hole is rotating; they’re just not sure how quickly yet.
It's Official, Antimatter Falls Down in Gravity, Not Up
Since the discovery of antimatter decades ago, particle physicists have wondered if these particles were repulsed by gravity. Einstein predicted that despite having opposite charges to its regular matter counterparts, antimatter should still behave like matter does concerning gravity. This has been tricky to confirm experimentally since it’s hard to make enough antimatter to observe its behavior. Particle physicists have finally pulled it off, using the ALPHA-g experiment at CERN, generating antihydrogen atoms and then dropping them in a 3-meter tall vertical shaft.
Astronomers are Hoping the Event Horizon Telescope saw Pulsars Near the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole
The Event Horizon Telescope is a collection of radio telescopes across the globe that simultaneously gathered data about the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, acting as a single telescope the size of planet Earth. This revealed the galaxy’s heart in unprecedented detail, helping to confirm the black hole’s event horizon and prove some of Einstein’s predictions about General Relativity. But if those observations happened to contain any signals from pulsars in the area, it would allow for even more precise measurements, as if there were atomic clocks orbiting Sgr A*.
JWST Plucks One Single Star out of a Galaxy Seen 12.5 Billion Years Ago
Thanks to data obtained by Webb, astronomers have confirmed that MACS0647-star-1 is the second farthest star observed to date.
Two New Space Telescopes Will Bring Dark Energy Into Focus
The ESA’s Euclid and NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman space telescope will work together to resolve the mystery of cosmic expansion!
Astronomers See the Same Supernova Four Times Thanks to a Gravitational Lens
Thanks to a well-placed gravitational lens, a team of astronomers was able to observe a supernova four times!
LISA Will Be a Remarkable Gravitational-Wave Observatory. But There’s a Way to Make it 100 Times More Powerful
A team of researchers with the ESA propose an upgrade for the LISA mission (LISAMax), which could revolutionize gravitational wave astronomy!
Gravitational Lensing is Helping to Nail Down Dark Matter
Using gravitational lenses, a team of astronomers showed how axions could be the particle that makes up Dark Matter.
The First Light in the Universe Helps Build a Dark Matter Map
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration used years of cosmic microwave background data to create a new map of Dark Matter.