2+ week, 23+ hour ago   (439+ words) A major new analysis challenges recent claims that the universe's expansion is slowing, finding that the evidence for cosmic acceleration remains strong. The findings preserve the leading role of dark energy, while leaving scientists with the enduring mystery…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (586+ words) The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment has detected a rare particle interaction that looks unusually difficult to explain as ordinary background noise and appeared where dark matter might be expected. Scientists are not claiming a discovery yet, but additional data could show whether…...

4+ day, 7+ hour ago   (653+ words) A new analysis led by researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, together with Professor Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford, is challenging one of the central ideas in modern cosmology: that the universe is expanding at…...

1+ week, 10+ hour ago   (506+ words) Dark matter is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern physics. Astronomers are highly confident that it exists and estimate that it accounts for about a quarter of the universe's total energy content, yet scientists still do not know…...

3+ week, 5+ 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…...

3+ week, 7+ hour ago   (764+ words) Astronomers have found stars that repeatedly skim past supermassive black holes, surviving each encounter while producing a new burst of light. In some systems, those flares mysteriously fade with every return. Researchers now think the key may be stars that…...

4+ week, 7+ hour ago   (674+ words) A massive star has been torn apart and gradually consumed by a black hole in a spectacular event that scientists compared to "preparing a snack for lunch." Astronomers around the world observed the extreme encounter, and the event was presented…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago   (634+ words) Astronomers may finally have a clue to what happens to the mysterious “little red dots” that crowded the early universe. By studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the “Saguaro,” researchers found a compact, bright red center that closely resembles these distant…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (983+ words) For billions of years, an ancient cluster of stars has been gradually coming apart, shedding stars that now form a faint, narrow ribbon across space. That delicate structure is offering astronomers a new way to investigate one of the universe's…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago   (907+ words) The universe is producing fewer stellar "babies." Over the past 4.5 billion years, the rate at which new stars form has fallen to less than half its previous level. Yet the supply of one of the most important types of "fuel…...