Big Bang News

November 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Astronomers Discover First Pairs of White Dwarf and Main Sequence Stars in Clusters, Shining New Light on Stellar Evolution

Nov. 19, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars -- 'dead' remnants and 'living' stars -- in young star clusters. This breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme ...

Three Galactic 'Red Monsters' in the Early Universe

Nov. 13, 2024 — Astronomers have identified three ultra-massive galaxies -- nearly as massive as the Milky Way -- already in place within the first billion years after the Big Bang. This surprising discovery was made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope's ...

A Formula for Life? New Model Calculates Chances of Intelligent Beings in Our Universe and Beyond

Nov. 12, 2024 — The chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe -- and in any hypothetical ones beyond it -- can be estimated by a new theoretical model which has echoes of the famous Drake Equation. This ...

Astronomers' Theory of How Galaxies Formed May Be Upended

Nov. 12, 2024 — The standard model for how galaxies formed in the early universe predicted that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would see dim signals from small, primitive galaxies. But data are not confirming the popular hypothesis that invisible dark matter ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:04pm EST

Einstein's Equations Collide With the Mysteries of the Universe

Nov. 11, 2024 — Why is the expansion of our Universe accelerating? Twenty-five years after its discovery, this phenomenon remains one of the greatest scientific mysteries. Solving it involves testing the fundamental ...

Astrophysicists Use Echoes of Light to Illuminate Black Holes

Nov. 7, 2024 — Researchers have developed an innovative technique to search for black hole light echoes. Their novel method, which will make it easier for the mass and the spin of black holes to be measured, ...

Interstellar Methane as Progenitor of Amino Acids?

Nov. 6, 2024 — Gamma radiation can convert methane into a wide variety of products at room temperature, including hydrocarbons, oxygen-containing molecules, and amino acids, reports a research team. This type of ...

Mighty Radio Bursts Linked to Massive Galaxies

Nov. 6, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered where FRBs are more likely to occur in the universe -- massive star-forming galaxies rather than low - mass ...

Dance of Electrons Measured in the Glow from Exploding Neutron-Stars

Nov. 4, 2024 — The temperature of elementary particles has been observed in the radioactive glow following the collision of two neutron stars and the birth of a black hole. This has, for the first time, made it ...

Astronomers Discover the Fastest-Feeding Black Hole in the Early Universe

Nov. 4, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang that is consuming matter at a phenomenal rate -- over 40 times the ...

One of the Fastest-Spinning Stars in the Universe

Oct. 30, 2024 — New research in our Milky Way has revealed a neutron star that rotates around its axis at an extremely high speed. It spins 716 times per second, making it one of the fastest-spinning objects ever ...

It's Not to Be. Universe Too Short for Shakespeare Typing Monkeys

Oct. 30, 2024 — It would take far longer than the lifespan of our universe for a typing monkey to randomly produce Shakespeare, a new study ...

Evidence Mounts for Dark Energy from Black Holes

Oct. 28, 2024 — Researchers have strengthened the case that matter becomes dark energy when massive stars collapse and become black ...

Astronomers Detect Ancient Lonely Quasars With Murky Origins

Oct. 17, 2024 — Astronomers observed ancient quasars that appear to be surprisingly alone in the early universe. The findings challenge physicists' understanding of how such luminous objects could have formed so ...

'Inside-Out' Galaxy Growth Observed in the Early Universe

Oct. 11, 2024 — Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the 'inside-out' growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big ...

'Islands' of Regularity Discovered in the Famously Chaotic Three-Body Problem

Oct. 10, 2024 — When three massive objects meet in space, they influence each other through gravity in ways that evolve unpredictably. In a word: Chaos. That is the conventional understanding. Now, a researcher has ...

Space Oddity: Most Distant Rotating Disc Galaxy Found

Oct. 7, 2024 — Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe ...

Influence of a Black Hole's Spin: First Evidence of Precession in Ultraluminous Accretion Disks

Oct. 7, 2024 — Researchers conducted innovative simulations of spinning black holes grounded in general relativity, which clarified that the ultraluminous accretion disk (i.e., gaseous spiral surrounding a black ...

Winds of Change: James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Elusive Details in Young Star Systems

Oct. 7, 2024 — Planet-forming disks, maelstroms of gas and dust swirling around young stars, are nurseries that give rise to planetary systems, including our solar system. Astronomers have discovered new details of ...

In Odd Galaxy, NASA's Webb Finds Potential Missing Link to First Stars

Oct. 3, 2024 — Looking deep into the early universe with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unprecedented: a galaxy with an odd light signature, which they attribute to its gas ...

Our Cosmic Neighborhood May Be 10x Larger

Sep. 27, 2024 — The Cosmicflows team has been studying the movements of 56,000 galaxies, revealing a potential shift in the scale of our galactic basin of ...

Webb Discovers 'Weird' Galaxy With Gas Outshining Its Stars

Sep. 25, 2024 — The discovery of a 'weird' and unprecedented galaxy in the early Universe could 'help us understand how the cosmic story began', astronomers say. GS-NDG-9422 (9422) was found ...

Early-Universe Quasar Neighborhoods Are Indeed Cluttered

Sep. 23, 2024 — Observations confirm astronomers' expectation that early-Universe quasars formed in regions of space densely populated with companion galaxies. DECam's exceptionally wide field of view and ...

Magnifying Deep Space Through the 'Carousel Lens'

Sep. 18, 2024 — A newly discovered cluster-scale strong gravitational lens, with a rare alignment of seven background lensed galaxies, provides a unique opportunity to study ...

Gargantuan Black Hole Jets Are Biggest Seen Yet

Sep. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to ...

A Wobble from Mars Could Be Sign of Dark Matter

Sep. 17, 2024 — Watching for changes in Mars' orbit over time could be new way to detect passing dark matter, according to ...

More Black Holes Than Expected in the Early Universe

Sep. 17, 2024 — With the help of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of scientists has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help ...

Astronomers Detect Black Hole 'Starving' Its Host Galaxy to Death

Sep. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new ...

Early Dark Energy Could Resolve Cosmology's Two Biggest Puzzles

Sep. 13, 2024 — Physicists propose that a mysterious force known as early dark energy could solve two of the biggest puzzles in cosmology and fill in some major gaps in our understanding of how the early universe ...

Huge Gamma-Ray Burst Collection 'Rivals 250-Year-Old Messier Catalog'

Sep. 13, 2024 — Hundreds of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been recorded as part of an enormous global effort so extensive it 'rivals the catalog of deep-sky objects created by Messier 250 years ago', ...

Formation of Super-Earths Is Limited Near Metal-Poor Stars

Sep. 9, 2024 — In a new study, astronomers report novel evidence regarding the limits of planet formation, finding that after a certain point, planets larger than Earth have difficulty forming near low-metallicity ...

AI Helps Distinguish Dark Matter from Cosmic Noise

Sep. 6, 2024 — An AI-powered tool can distinguish dark matter's elusive effects from other cosmic phenomena, which could bring us closer to unlocking the secrets of dark ...

Gravitational Waves Unveil Previously Unseen Properties of Neutron Stars

Sep. 5, 2024 — A better understanding of the inner workings of neutron stars will lead to a greater knowledge of the dynamics that underpin the workings of the universe and also could help drive future technology. ...

Distorted Galaxy Forming Cosmic Question Mark

Sep. 4, 2024 — It's 7 billion years ago, and the universe's heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers have found clues in ...