Big Bang News

May 7, 2024

Top Headlines

Venus Has Almost No Water: A New Study May Reveal Why

May 6, 2024 — Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored as much water as Earth. Today, almost all of it has disappeared. A new study may help to explain ...

Astronomers Observe Elusive Stellar Light Surrounding Ancient Quasars

May 6, 2024 — Astronomers observed the elusive starlight surrounding some of the earliest quasars in the universe. The findings may shed light on how the earliest supermassive black holes became so massive despite having a relatively short amount of cosmic time ...

Hubble Views a Galaxy With a Voracious Black Hole

May 6, 2024 — Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth. It's classified ...

Astronomers' Simulations Support Dark Matter Theory

Apr. 29, 2024 — Computer simulations by astronomers support the idea that dark matter -- matter that no one has yet directly detected but which many physicists think must be there to explain several aspects of the observable universe -- exists, according to the ...

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A 'Cosmic Glitch' in Gravity

May 1, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a potential 'cosmic glitch' in the universe's gravity, explaining its strange behavior on a cosmic ...

Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail

Apr. 30, 2024 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These ...

Gemini South Reveals Origin of Unexpected Differences in Giant Binary Stars

Apr. 29, 2024 — Astronomers have confirmed that differences in binary stars' composition can originate from chemical variations in the cloud of stellar material from which they formed. The results help explain why ...

Toward Unification of Turbulence Framework -- Weak-to-Strong Transition Discovered in Turbulence

Apr. 23, 2024 — Astrophysicists have made a significant step toward solving the last puzzle in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence theory by observing the weak to strong ...

Physicists Solve Puzzle About Ancient Galaxy Found by Webb Telescope

Apr. 12, 2024 — Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current ...

No Gamma Rays Seen Coming from Nearby Supernova

Apr. 16, 2024 — A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But ...

Physicists Solve Puzzle About Ancient Galaxy Found by Webb Telescope

Apr. 15, 2024 — Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current ...

Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst of All Time Came from the Collapse of a Massive Star

Apr. 12, 2024 — In 2022, astronomers discovered the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) of all time. Now, astronomers confirm that a 'normal' supernova, the telltale ...

Neutron Stars Are Key to Understanding Elusive Dark Matter

Apr. 5, 2024 — Scientists may be one step closer to unlocking one of the great mysteries of the universe after calculating that neutron stars might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark ...

Climate Change Threatens Antarctic Meteorites

Apr. 8, 2024 — Antarctica harbors a large concentration of meteorites imbuing the icy continent with an unparalleled wealth of information on our solar system. However, these precious meteorites are rapidly ...

First Results from DESI Make the Most Precise Measurement of Our Expanding Universe

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to make the largest 3D map of our universe and world-leading measurements of dark energy, the mysterious cause of its accelerating ...

NASA's Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy

Apr. 3, 2024 — A team of astronomers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy ...

Scientists Find One of the Most Ancient Stars That Formed in Another Galaxy

Mar. 20, 2024 — The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new ...

Largest-Ever Map of Universe's Active Supermassive Black Holes Released

Mar. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ...

New Research Suggests That Our Universe Has No Dark Matter

Mar. 15, 2024 — A new study challenges the current model of the universe by showing that, in fact, it has no room for dark ...

AI for Astrophysics: Algorithms Help Chart the Origins of Heavy Elements

Mar. 13, 2024 — The origin of heavy elements in our universe is theorized to be the result of neutron star collisions, which produce conditions hot and dense enough for free neutrons to merge with atomic nuclei and ...

Nasa’s Webb, Hubble Telescopes Affirm Universe’s Expansion Rate, Puzzle Persists

Mar. 11, 2024 — When you are trying to solve one of the biggest conundrums in cosmology, you should triple check your homework. The puzzle, called the 'Hubble Tension,' is that the current rate of the ...

Pushing the Boundary on Ultralow Frequency Gravitational Waves

Mar. 8, 2024 — A team of physicists has developed a method to detect gravity waves with such low frequencies that they could unlock the secrets behind the early phases of mergers between supermassive black holes, ...

Baby Quasars: Growing Supermassive Black Holes

Mar. 7, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope makes one of the most unexpected findings within its first year of service: A high number of faint little red dots in the distant Universe could change the way we ...

Finding New Physics in Debris from Colliding Neutron Stars

Mar. 6, 2024 — Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to ...

Astronomers Spot Oldest 'Dead' Galaxy Yet Observed

Mar. 6, 2024 — A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' ...

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

Mar. 4, 2024 — Looking deeply into space and time, astronomers have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years ...

New Insights on How Galaxies Are Formed

Mar. 1, 2024 — Astronomers can use supercomputers to simulate the formation of galaxies from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present day. But there are a number of sources of error. An international ...

Astronomers Discover Heavy Elements After Bright Gamma-Ray Burst from Neutron Star Merger

Feb. 29, 2024 — An international team of astronomers obtained observational evidence for the creation of rare heavy elements in the aftermath of a cataclysmic explosion triggered by the merger of two neutron ...

'Cosmic Lighthouses' That Cleared Primordial Fog Identified With JWST

Feb. 28, 2024 — Scientists working with data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have obtained the first full spectra of some of the earliest starlight in the universe. The images provide the clearest ...

Brightest and Fastest-Growing: Astronomers Identify Record-Breaking Quasar

Feb. 22, 2024 — Astronomers have characterized a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies ...

Under Pressure -- Space Exploration in Our Time

Feb. 16, 2024 — A new paradigm is taking shape in the space industry as the countries and entities accessing space continue to grow and diversify. This dynamic landscape creates both competition and potential for ...

Evidence of Geothermal Activity Within Icy Dwarf Planets

Feb. 15, 2024 — A team found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the tell-tale signs ...

A Long, Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Not So Far Away

Feb. 6, 2024 — Employing massive data sets collected through NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are unearthing clues to conditions existing in the early universe. The team has catalogued the ages ...

Which Came First: Black Holes or Galaxies?

Feb. 6, 2024 — Black holes not only existed at the dawn of time, they birthed new stars and supercharged galaxy formation, a new analysis of James Webb Space Telescope data ...