Astrophysics and cosmology Archives – Page 21 of 59

CLOUD sees through the haze

The CLOUD (Cosmic Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) experiment at CERN, which is studying whether cosmic rays have a climatically significant effect on aerosols and clouds, is also tackling one of the most ch...

New instrument sees intergalactic filaments

A team of US astronomers has taken unprecedented images of the intergalactic medium (IGM) – the diffuse gas that connects galaxies throughout the universe. These first pictures of the IGM were o...

BICEP2 finds evidence of cosmic inflation

The news came as a surprise on 17 March, making a “big bang” in the physics community. Within hours of the announcement, physicists around the world had become aware of the existence ...

Fermi gamma-rays match dark-matter signal

A new analysis of observations of the galactic centre by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope strengthens the case for a signal from annihilating dark matter. The authors claim that the excess emission...

Record-setting GRB challenges theories

The very bright, relatively nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 27 April 2013 – GRB 130427A – offers astronomers the most complete set of observational data of this phenomenon to date. Wh...

Black-hole jets contain heavy nuclei

One of the open questions of astrophysics is the composition of the powerful jets launched by black holes. Are the jets purely leptonic or do they also contain protons and nuclei? The latter are impli...

Light echoes reveal black hole’s violent past

Researchers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence that the normally dim region close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way flared up with at least tw...

CLOUD shines new light on aerosol formation in atmosphere

The CLOUD experiment at CERN, which is studying whether cosmic rays have a climatically significant effect on aerosols and clouds, is also tackling one of the most challenging and long-standing proble...

Volatile millisecond pulsar validates theory

For the first time, astronomers have caught a pulsar in a crucial transitional phase that explains the origin of the mysterious millisecond pulsars. The newly found pulsar swings back and forth betwee...