18+ hour, 17+ min ago   (262+ words) A massive worldwide survey of physicists has revealed surprisingly little agreement about some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. No majority backed the standard cosmological model, a leading explanation for dark matter, or any single theory of quantum gravity. One area…...

5+ day, 4+ hour ago   (685+ words) Astronomers have directly detected an extraordinarily faint radio signal from hydrogen gas billions of light-years away, demonstrating a promising new method for mapping the vast structure of the Universe. The international team, led by researchers at the University of Manchester…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago   (294+ words) Quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity explain almost everything we see in nature, yet physicists still do not know how to unite them. A new theoretical framework suggests that some experiments that appear to show gravity behaving quantum mechanically…...

3+ week, 18+ hour ago   (840+ words) What was the Universe like before stars, planets, atoms, and the other familiar forms of matter existed? At CERN in Switzerland, physicists are trying to answer that question by reproducing some of the extreme conditions that existed in the Universe…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (324+ words) Last week's total solar eclipse offered more than a spectacular view. It also produced an unusual atmospheric effect that gave the Sun's outer atmosphere a striking golden appearance. Why the Eclipse Looked Golden The timing of the eclipse played an…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago   (689+ words) Gravity was the natural place to start. On average, the universe is electrically neutral, which means electromagnetism does not dominate its large-scale behavior. Einstein also knew nothing about the strong and weak nuclear forces (to be fair, nobody did), but those…...