Scientists create device to detect Universe's dark matterSeptember 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has developed a "scintillating bolometer", a device that they will use in efforts to detect the dark matter of the Universe. The device was developed by researchers from the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) and the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS, in France).
Mystery of odd rotating stars solved by scientistsSeptember 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has solved a longstanding mystery about a pair of stars called DI Herculis whose peculiar rotation had remained a mystery for three decades. The shift in the orbit of DI Herculis was a mystery till now.
Image of different regions of Trifid Nebula captured by European Southern ObservatoryAugust 27th, 2009 MUNICH - A new image by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has captured the different regions of the Trifid Nebula, which is a rare combination of three nebula types, as seen in visible light. This massive star factory is so named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, revealing the fury of freshly formed stars and presaging more star birth.
Dark energy may not actually existAugust 18th, 2009 LONDON - A new research by scientists has claimed that dark energy - the mysterious substance thought to make up three-quarters of the universe - may not actually exist. The concept of dark energy was created by cosmologists to fit Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity into reality after modern space telescopes discovered that the Universe was not behaving as it should.
Type 1a supernovae vital for making precise measurement of Universe's expansion rateAugust 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has determined that type 1a supernovae will have to be taken into account if astronomers are to use them for more precise measurements of cosmic distances and dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe. The discovery of dark energy, a mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe, was based on observations of type 1a supernovae.
Universe's first black holes kept to a strict dietAugust 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new supercomputer simulation designed to track the fate of the universe's first black holes has found that the mysterious cosmic objects couldn't efficiently gorge themselves on nearby gas, and thus had to keep themselves on a strict diet, starving in the process. "The first stars were much more massive than most stars we see today, upwards of 100 times the mass of our sun," said John Wise, a post-doctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the study's authors.
Dancing helps galaxies lose weight!July 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In an interesting new research, astronomers have determined that dwarf spheroidal galaxies, which contain few stars relative to their total mass, are formed by indulging in a cosmic dance. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies appear to be made mostly of dark matter - a mysterious substance detectable only by its gravitational influence, which outweighs normal matter by a factor of five to one in the universe as a whole.
Earliest stars in Universe may have been twinsJuly 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Astrophysicists, using extremely detailed computer simulations, have determined that the earliest stars in the universe formed not only as individuals, but sometimes also as twins. The robust simulations of the early universe were created by astrophysicists Matthew Turk and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Brian O'Shea of Michigan State University.
Milky Way's "dark matter" mystery solved by astrophysicistsJuly 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of astrophysicists has solved a mystery that led some scientists to speculate that the distribution of certain gamma rays in our Milky Way galaxy was evidence of a form of undetectable "dark matter" believed to make up much of the mass of the universe. In two separate scientific papers, the astrophysicists show that this distribution of gamma rays can be explained by the way "antimatter positrons" from the radioactive decay of elements, created by massive star explosions in the galaxy, propagate through the galaxy.
Milky Way survived ancient heat wave because of dark matterJuly 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new theory by scientists says that our Milky Way galaxy survived intense heat generated by the "ignition" of the Universe about half-a-billion years after the Big Bang, because it was already immersed in a large clump of dark matter that trapped gases inside it. Tiny galaxies, inside small clumps of dark matter, were blasted away by the heat that reached approximate temperatures of between 20,000 and 100,000 degrees centigrade, according to the scientists, including experts at Japan's University of Tsukuba.
Largest ever survey of very distant galaxy clusters completedJuly 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of researchers led by a UC (University of California) Riverside astronomer has completed the largest ever survey designed to find very distant clusters of galaxies. Named the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, "SpARCS" detects galaxy clusters using deep ground-based optical observations from the CTIO 4m and CFHT 3.6m telescopes, combined with Spitzer Space Telescope infrared observations.
Crews begin work on world's deepest underground science lab in quest to understand dark matterJune 22nd, 2009 Work begins on world's deepest underground labSIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings — a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.
Maths theories may give clues on origins and future of life in UniverseJune 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, a Maths Professor is looking to mathematical theories for clues on origins and future of life in the Universe. Louis Crane, K-State professor of mathematics, is studying new theories about why the universe is the way it is.
Black hole discovered to be 3 times more massive than previously thoughtJune 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Astronomers have used new computer modeling techniques to discover that the black hole at the heart of M87, one the largest nearby giant galaxies, is two to three times more massive than previously thought. The astronomers were Karl Gebhardt from the University of Texas at Austin and Jens Thomas from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.
Astronomers discover most dark gamma-ray bursts occur in normal galaxiesJune 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of astronomers has found most dark gamma-ray bursts occur in normal galaxies detectable by large, ground-based optical telescopes. Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's biggest explosions, capable of producing so much light that ground-based telescopes easily detect it billions of light-years away.
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