Cosmology Archives

June 27, 2024June 29, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Dark Matter: Why study it? What makes it so fascinating?

Image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of a galaxy cluster that could contain dark matter (blue-shaded region). (Credit: NASA, ESA, M. J. Jee and H. Ford et al. (Johns Hopkins Univ.))

Universe Today has had some incredible discussions with a wide array of scientists regarding impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, and planetary protection, and how these intriguing fields contribute to our understanding regarding our place in the cosmos.

Here, Universe Today discusses the mysterious field of dark matter with Dr. Shawn Westerdale, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and head of the Dark Matter and Neutrino Lab at the University of California, Riverside, regarding the importance of studying dark matter, the benefits and challenges, the most exciting aspects about dark matter he’s studied throughout his career, and advice for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying dark matter. So, what is the importance of studying dark matter?

April 12, 2024April 24, 2024 by Matt Williams

Formation-Flying Spacecraft Could Probe the Solar System for New Physics

A solar flare erupts on the Sun. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

It’s an exciting time for the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Thanks to cutting-edge observatories, instruments, and new techniques, scientists are getting closer to experimentally verifying theories that remain largely untested. These theories address some of the most pressing questions scientists have about the Universe and the physical laws governing it – like the nature of gravity, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy. For decades, scientists have postulated that either there is additional physics at work or that our predominant cosmological model needs to be revised.

While the investigation into the existence and nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy is ongoing, there are also attempts to resolve these mysteries with the possible existence of new physics. In a recent paper, a team of NASA researchers proposed how spacecraft could search for evidence of additional physical within our Solar Systems. This search, they argue, would be assisted by the spacecraft flying in a tetrahedral formation and using interferometers. Such a mission could help resolve a cosmological mystery that has eluded scientists for over half a century.

February 12, 2024February 12, 2024 by Brian Koberlein

Measuring Distances in the Universe With Fast Radio Bursts

FAST catches a real pulse from FRB 121102. Credit: NAOC

Now and then there is a bright radio flash somewhere in the sky. It can last anywhere from a few milliseconds to a few seconds. They appear somewhat at random, and we still aren’t sure what they are. We call them fast radio bursts (FRBs). Right now the leading theory is that they are caused by highly magnetic neutron stars known as magnetars. With observatories such as CHIME we are now able to see lots of them, which could give astronomers a new way to measure the rate of cosmic expansion.

January 13, 2024January 13, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Gravitational Waves Could Show us the First Minute of the Universe

Astronomers routinely explore the universe using different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum from the familiar visible light to radio waves and infra-red to gamma rays. There is a problem with studying the Universe through the electromagnetic spectrum, we can only see light from a time when the Universe was only 380,000 years old. An alternate approach is to use gravitational waves which are thought to have been present in the early Universe and may allow us to probe back even further.

December 8, 2023December 9, 2023 by Matt Williams

If Our Part of the Universe is Less Dense, Would That Explain the Hubble Tension?

Ten areas in the sky were selected as “deep fields” that the Dark Energy Camera imaged several times during the survey, providing a glimpse of distant galaxies and helping determine their 3D distribution in the cosmos. Credit: NSF/DES/NOIRLab/DOE/FNAL/AURA/University of Alaska Anchorage/

In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaitre made a startling discovery that forever changed our perception of the Universe. Upon observing galaxies beyond the Milky Way and measuring their spectra, they determined that the Universe was expanding. By the 1990s, with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists took the deepest images of the Universe to date and made another startling discovery: the rate of expansion is speeding up! This parameter, denoted by Lambda, is integral to the accepted model of cosmology, known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model.

Since then, attempts to measure distances have produced a discrepancy known as the “Hubble Tension.” While it was hoped that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would resolve this “crisis in cosmology,” its observations have only deepened the mystery. This has led to several proposed resolutions, including the idea that there was an “Early Dark Energy” shortly after the Big Bang. In a recent paper, an international team of astrophysicists proposed a new solution based on an alternate theory of gravity that states that our galaxy is in the center of an “under-density.”

November 10, 2023November 10, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

If We Could Find Them, Primordial Black Holes Would Explain a Lot About the Universe

Artist view of small black holes in the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

There are three known types of black holes in the Universe: supermassive black holes that lurk in the centers of galaxies, stellar-mass black holes that are the remnants of massive stars, and intermediate-mass black holes that can be found in dense clusters of stars. But there is a fourth, hypothetical type of black hole known as primordial black holes (PBHs). If they exist, they could solve a few cosmological mysteries.

October 27, 2023October 27, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Everything in the Universe Fits in This One Graph. Even the Impossible Stuff

Masses, sizes, and relative densities of objects in our Universe, and more. Credit: Charles H. Lineweaver & Vihan M. Patel, doi: 10.1119/5.0150209.

The Universe has physical constants, such as the force of gravity that define everything. If these constants were any different, our Universe would look quite different. When you consider the types of objects that exist in our Universe – from quarks and bacteria to fleas and superclusters — different forces dominate their existence.

A fascinating new graph plots everything in the known Universe and shows us what’s possible. It also shows what types of objects are prohibited by the laws of physics as we understand them.

October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

A Fast Radio Burst Took 8 Billion Years to Reach Us

Illustration of the path of the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A to Earth. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Fast Radio Bursts are an astrophysical enigma. They are intense bursts of radio energy lasting anywhere from a fraction of a millisecond to a few seconds, typically with a frequency of around 1,400 MHz, and we still don’t know what causes them. They were first detected in 2007 but were initially so rare and short-lived that it was difficult to confirm they weren’t terrestrial in origin. With the inauguration of the CHIME telescope and other wide-field radio observatories, we started observing lots of them, which confirmed they were both astrophysical and mostly coming from outside our galaxy. Now one has been observed from a galaxy 8 billion light years away, and it could help us solve a cosmological mystery.

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

The Big Bang: What is it? Why study it? What happened before? How will it all end?

Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, the greatest event in all of existence occurred that literally created existence itself. This event is known as the Big Bang, and it’s responsible for the estimated septillion number of stars that are scattered across the vast reaches of the unknown, including the one our small, blue world orbits. However, other than knowing that the Big Bang occurred, there is still a septillion amount of information we still don’t know about the greatest event in the history of existence.

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

A New Telescope Could Detect Decaying Dark Matter in the Early Universe

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). Credit: HERA Collaboration

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe. By far. More than 90% of the atoms in the Universe are hydrogen. Ten times the number of helium atoms, and a hundred times more than all other elements combined. It’s everywhere, from the water in our oceans to the earliest regions of the Cosmic Dawn. Fortunately for astronomers, all this neutral hydrogen can emit a faint emission line of radio light.