Astronomers using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have identified an intense gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way that researchers argue matches the expected signature of colliding dark matter particles, according to recent studies. Dark matter constitutes roughly 85% of the universe’s mass and remains invisible because it does not interact … Read more
Black hole physics reveals that cosmic systems can expel significant amounts of matter instead of endlessly consuming it, according to a paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Researchers studying high-resolution optical records from a 2023 eruption found that a black hole system named Swift J1727.8−1613 redistributed at least 10% of its … Read more
According to special relativity, a photon crossing a billion light-years accumulates no elapsed time along its path, experiencing zero proper time between its emission and absorption. While observers on Earth measure a journey lasting a billion years, the photon’s path contains no elapsed time, exposing how differently the universe treats light, motion, and time. Time … Read more
Physicists have confirmed a 200-year-old prediction about how heat crosses boundaries in matter heated to 200,000°C—more than 35 times hotter than the surface of the Sun—with direct consequences for inertial confinement fusion research, according to findings published by C.H. Allen and collaborators in Nature Communications. Fourier’s Toll Booth and Interfacial Thermal Resistance in Extreme Matter … Read more
Physicists at Penn State have proposed a new framework to calculate the entropy of black holes, moving beyond the 50-year-old paradigm established by Stephen Hawking. By replacing “event horizons” with “dynamical horizons,” the research team provides a method to measure thermodynamics in black holes that are actively merging, growing, or evaporating, according to a study … Read more
Solar storm risks to Earth’s infrastructure may be significantly underestimated because there is no known upper limit to how the planet responds to solar wind, according to a study published in Nature. Research led by Nithin Sivadas of NASA and Maria Walach from Lancaster University suggests that previous beliefs in a “leveling off” of atmospheric … Read more
Astronomers have identified a third giant planet, Beta Pictoris d, orbiting the young star Beta Pictoris using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Unlike traditional imaging that relies on direct light, researchers discovered the planet by detecting a unique chemical fingerprint of carbon monoxide in its atmosphere. This discovery, detailed by lead author Aidan Gibbs in … Read more
Physicists from Georgia State University (GSU) and Bolivia’s Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) have deployed a low-cost cosmic-ray detector at the Chacaltaya high-altitude observatory. This installation integrates Bolivia into the global gLOWCOST network, a project designed to monitor space-weather phenomena that threaten Earth’s power grids and infrastructure by tracking muon particles from the upper … Read more
A decades-old mystery in particle physics has reached a turning point: a new study published in Physical Review Letters effectively rules out dark matter as the source of a long-standing “seasonal” signal. By combining data from the ANAIS-112 and COSINE-100 experiments, researchers have demonstrated that the annual modulation previously reported by the DAMA/NaI experiment does … Read more
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has officially started the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a 10-year effort to create the most detailed and comprehensive record of the universe’s history. Using the world’s largest digital camera, the project aims to map potentially billions of galaxies, find asteroids, and analyze the solar system … Read more