Dark Matter News

December 24, 2024

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Dark Energy 'Doesn't Exist' So Can't Be Pushing 'Lumpy' Universe Apart

Dec. 20, 2024 — One of the biggest mysteries in science -- dark energy -- doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the Universe is expanding. For the past 100 years, physicists have generally assumed that the cosmos is ...

Survey of 26,000 Dead Stars Confirms Key Details of Extreme Stellar Behavior

Dec. 18, 2024 — A study of more than 26,000 white dwarf stars has confirmed a long-predicted but elusive effect in these ultra-dense, dying stars: Hotter white dwarfs are slightly puffier than cooler ones, even when ...

Universe Expansion Study Confirms Challenge to Cosmic Theory

Dec. 9, 2024 — New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a new feature in the universe -- not a flaw in telescope measurements -- may be behind the decade-long mystery of why the universe is expanding faster today than it did in its infancy ...

Evidence of Primordial Black Holes May Be Hiding in Planets, or Even Everyday Objects Here on Earth

Dec. 2, 2024 — A theoretical study suggests that small black holes born in the early universe may have left behind hollow planetoids and microscopic tunnels, and that we should start looking within rocks and old ...

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Magnetic Tornado Is Stirring Up the Haze at Jupiter's Poles

Nov. 26, 2024 — Dark ovals in Jupiter's polar haze, visible only at UV wavelengths, were first noticed 25 years ago, then ignored. A new study shows that these dark UV ovals are common, appearing at the south pole ...

Possible Origins of Dark Matter in 'Dark Big Bang' Scenario

Nov. 18, 2024 — Recent research unlocks new clues that could radically change the world's understanding of the origin of dark ...

A Nearby Supernova Could End the Search for Dark Matter

Nov. 21, 2024 — Axions are the most likely candidate for enigmatic dark matter that dominates the universe. Astrophysicists are searching for evidence of high-mass axions produced during supernovae. Scientists ...

Research on Gravity in Line With Einstein's Theory of General Relativity

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to map how nearly 6 million galaxies cluster across 11 billion years of cosmic history. Their observations line up with what Einstein's ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

New ESO Image Captures a Dark Wolf in the Sky

Oct. 31, 2024 — For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals a spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly ...

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 ...

Neutron Stars May Be Shrouded in Axions

Oct. 18, 2024 — Physicists have shown that extremely light particles known as axions may occur in large clouds around neutron stars. These axions could form an explanation for the elusive dark matter that ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Dark Matter Could Have Helped Make Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe

Aug. 28, 2024 — Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not that long after the Big Bang -- before they should have had time to form. ...

Astrophysicists Use AI to Precisely Calculate Universe's 'Settings'

Aug. 26, 2024 — The new estimates of the parameters that form the basis of the standard model of cosmology are far more precise than previous approaches using the same galaxy distribution ...

New Record in Search for Dark Matter

Aug. 26, 2024 — New results from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector put the best-ever limits on particles called WIMPs, a leading candidate for what makes up our universe's invisible ...

Dark Matter: A Camera Trap for the Invisible

July 29, 2024 — AI-powered image recognition could give researchers a new tool in hunt for dark ...

Dark Matter Flies Ahead of Normal Matter in Mega Galaxy Cluster Collision

July 24, 2024 — Astronomers have untangled a messy collision between two massive clusters of galaxies in which the clusters' vast clouds of dark matter have decoupled from the so-called normal ...

Astrophysicists Uncover Supermassive Blackhole/dark Matter Connection in Solving the 'Final Parsec Problem'

July 22, 2024 — Researchers have found a link between some of the largest and smallest objects in the cosmos: supermassive black holes and dark matter particles. Their new calculations reveal that pairs of ...

How Astronomers Are Using Pulsars to Observe Evidence of Dark Matter

July 16, 2024 — Tantalizing evidence of potential dark matter objects has been detected with the help of the Universe's 'timekeepers'. These pulsars -- neutron stars which rotate and emit ...

Cosmic Wrestling Match

July 15, 2024 — Our universe is around 13.8 billion years old. Over the vastness of this time, the tiniest of initial asymmetries have grown into the large-scale structures we can see through our telescopes in the ...

Dark Matter in Dwarf Galaxy Tracked Using Stellar Motions

July 11, 2024 — The qualities and behavior of dark matter, the invisible 'glue' of the universe, continue to be shrouded in mystery. Though galaxies are mostly made of dark matter, understanding how it is ...

The Origins of Dark Comets

July 10, 2024 — Up to 60% of near-Earth objects could be dark comets, mysterious asteroids that orbit the sun in our solar system that likely contain or previously contained ice and could have been one route for ...

Too Many Missing Satellite Galaxies Found

June 28, 2024 — Bringing us one step closer to solving the 'missing satellites problem,' researchers have discovered two new satellite ...

Precision Instrument Bolsters Efforts to Find Elusive Dark Energy

June 26, 2024 — Dark energy -- a mysterious force pushing the universe apart at an ever-increasing rate -- was discovered 26 years ago, and ever since, scientists have been searching for a new and exotic particle ...

Modified Gravity Theory: A Million Light Years and Still Going

June 17, 2024 — In a breakthrough discovery that challenges the conventional understanding of cosmology, scientists have unearthed new evidence that could reshape our perception of the cosmos. New research shows ...

Scientists Develop 3D Printed Vacuum System That Aims to Trap Dark Matter

June 17, 2024 — Using a specially designed 3D printed vacuum system, scientists have developed a way to 'trap' dark matter with the aim of detecting domain walls, this will be a significant step forwards ...