Tag Archive for 'Universe'

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle proposed in 2019 and the information content of the observable matter in the Universe estimated in 2021 represent two important conjectures, called the information conjectures. Combining information theory and physical principles of thermodynamics, these theoretical proposals made specific predictions about the mass of information as well as the most probable information content per elementary particle. Dr. Vopson proposes an experimental protocol that allows for empirical verification of the information conjectures by confirming the predicted information content of elementary particles. Image credit: Pete Linforth.

Newly Proposed Experiment Could Confirm that Information is Fifth State of Matter

Mar 21, 2022 by News Staff

Dr. Melvin Vopson, a physicist with the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Portsmouth, has already published research suggesting that...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Early Universe Experienced Phase Transition that Created Supermassive Black Holes, Study Suggests

Mar 15, 2022 by News Staff

The formation of ultrarare supermassive black holes, with masses over one billion solar masses, in the first billion years of the Universe is an open question...

PSR J2030+4415 generated an extremely long beam of matter and antimatter. Image credit: NASA / CXC / Stanford University / M. de Vries / NSF / AURA / Gemini Consortium.

Chandra Spots Huge Filament of Matter and Antimatter from Gamma-Ray Pulsar

Mar 15, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have observed a remarkable X-ray filament generated by the gamma-ray pulsar PSR J2030+4415. PSR J2030+4415...

Noise variations in the two regions covered by the second data release from the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) Two-metre Sky Survey with the coverage of the 841 individual pointing outlined. The RA-13 (top) and RA-1 (bottom) regions span 4,178 and 1,457 square degrees and have median rms values of 74 μJy beam−1 and 106 μJy beam−1 respectively. Failed facets (white regions) are generally caused by either poor ionospheric conditions or dynamic range issues around bright sources such as 3C 48 and 3C 196. Image credit: Shimwell et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202142484.

LOFAR Radio Telescope Maps More Than Quarter of Northern Sky

Feb 28, 2022 by News Staff

In the second data release from the ongoing LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) Two-metre Sky Survey, astronomers present radio images covering 27% of the northern...

Four possible domains of planetary intelligence: (a) on a planet with an immature biosphere (such as the Earth during the Archean Eon) there are insufficient feedback loops between life and geophysical coupled systems to exert strong co-evolution; (b) on a planet with a mature biosphere (such as Earth after the Proterozoic) the biosphere exerts strong forcing on the geophysical state establishing full co-evolution of the entire system; this feedback may provide some degree of long-term stabilizing (i.e. Gaian) modulations for the full system; (c) on a planet with an immature technosphere (represented by the current Anthropocene Earth) feedbacks from technological activity produce strong enough forcing on the coupled planetary system to drive it into new dynamical states; these forcings however are unconstrained by intention relative to the health of the civilization producing the technology; (d) on a planet with a mature technosphere, feedback loops between technological activity and biogeochemical and biogeophysical states have been intentionally modified to ensure maximum stability and productivity of the full system; alongside each planetary image, we show a schematic atmospheric spectrum; an immature biosphere would show an atmosphere mostly in equilibrium dominated perhaps by carbon dioxide (CO2); in a mature biosphere life would have changed atmospheric chemistry leading to a highly non-equilibrium state such as perhaps high concentrations of oxygen (O2); in an immature technosphere new ‘pollutant’ species appear, such as CFCs, while industrial activities such as combustion may alter the abundance of other pre-existing gases like CO2 and methane; in a mature technosphere all atmospheric constituents may have their concentrations modified to produce long-term stable and productive states for the full (civilization + biosphere) system; this is represented via a range of possible peaks for different constituents. Image credit: Frank et al., doi: 10.1017/S147355042100029X.

Can Planets Be Intelligent?

Feb 22, 2022 by News Staff

Conventionally, intelligence is seen as a property of individuals. However, it is also known to be a property of collectives. Examples include collective-decision-making...

This radio-infrared image shows the radio galaxy Alcyoneus. Image credit: Oei et al., arXiv: 2202.05427.

LOFAR Telescope Spots Biggest Radio Galaxy Ever

Feb 16, 2022 by Natali Anderson

The newly-discovered radio galaxy, dubbed Alcyoneus, has a projected length of 16.3 million light-years (4.99 Mpc). This radio-infrared image shows the...

Density distribution of the 550 galaxies in the COSMOS UltraVISTA DR3 catalog (cyan circles). The two ultramassive galaxies, COS-DR3-179370 (in MAGAZ3NE J0959) and COS-DR3-160748 (in MAGAZ3NE J1000), are shown by blue and green stars, respectively. Image credit: McConachie et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac2b9f.

Two Protoclusters of Galaxies Spotted in Early Universe

Feb 10, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Each of the two newly-discovered protoclusters, MAGAZ3NE J095924+022537 and MAGAZ3NE J100028+023349 (MAGAZ3NE J0959 and MAGAZ3NE J1000 for short), hosts...

Physicists Detect Exotic Particles in Quark-Gluon Plasma

Jan 25, 2022 by News Staff

Physicists from the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have detected about 100 particles of a type known as X(3872)...

An artist’s impression of a group of stellar-mass black holes in the center of NGC 6397. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Bartmann.

Universe is Teeming with Quintillions of Stellar-Mass Black Holes

Jan 19, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of astrophysicists from Italy and the United Kingdom has calculated that in the observable Universe, a sphere of diameter around 90 billion light-years,...

Artistic impression of a Multiverse. Image credit: Jaime Salcido / EAGLE Collaboration.

New Multiverse Theory Explains Surprisingly Small Mass of Higgs Boson

Jan 18, 2022 by News Staff

Dr. Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and Dr. Daniele Teresi from CERN have proposed a novel theory...

A slice through the 3D map of galaxies from the first few months of the DESI survey. The Earth is at the center, with the furthest galaxies plotted at distances of 10 billion light-years. Each point represents one galaxy. This version of the DESI map shows a subset of 400,000 of the 35 million galaxies that will be in the final map. Image credit: D. Schlegel / DESI / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab.

DESI Creates Largest and Most Detailed Map of Universe Ever

Jan 17, 2022 by News Staff

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a multi-object survey spectrograph installed on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National...

Artist’s impression of a cloud of trapped antihydrogen atoms. Image credit: Chukman So.

Antimatter Responds to Gravity in Same Way as Regular Matter, New Experiments Suggest

Jan 6, 2022 by News Staff

The Standard Model of particle physics is both incredibly successful and glaringly incomplete. Among the questions left open is the striking imbalance...

C-19 is a grouping of stars in the Milky Way halo that share a common orbital motion around the Galaxy. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine / M. Zamani.

Astronomers Find Primordial Stellar Stream in Milky Way’s Halo

Jan 6, 2022 by News Staff

Named C-19, the newly-discovered stellar stream is the remnant of an ancient globular cluster and contains stars with extremely low metallicity, with a...

The James Webb Space Telescope lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on December 25, 2021, on its exciting mission to unlock the secrets of the Universe. Image credit: ESA / CNES / Arianespace.

Webb Launches to Study Universe in Infrared

Dec 26, 2021 by News Staff

The James Webb Space Telescope, an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), launched at 7:20 a.m. EST (13:20 CET)...

An artist’s rendering of a classical nova. Image credit: David Hardy, www.astroart.org.

New Type of Binary Star Observed

Dec 3, 2021 by News Staff

Using new data from ESA’s Gaia star-mapping satellite, the Zwicky Transient Facility, and the Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory, astronomers have observed...

Photons emitted near rotating black holes encode quantum information that can be measured by actual quantum information technology. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astrophysicists Search for Gravitational-Wave Signals from Ultralight Boson Clouds

Dec 1, 2021 by News Staff

Theories of beyond Standard Model physics allow for the production of ultralight bosons — hypothetical particles with masses less than a billionth...

An artist’s rendition of an eggshell exoplanet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Eggshell Exoplanets: Rocky Worlds with Ultra-Thin Brittle Lithospheres Could Theoretically Exist

Nov 11, 2021 by News Staff

The thickness of the brittle lithosphere — the outer portion of a planetary body that fails via fracturing — plays a key role in the geological...

Graphical table of all gravitational wave events discovered from 2015 through the end of LIGO/Virgo’s third observing run. The table includes the gravitational event name, the type of binary component (black hole, neutron star, or uncertain), the masses of the primary and secondary, and the mass of the final merged object. Image credit: LIGO / Virgo / KAGRA / C. Knox / H. Middleton.

Astrophysicists Detect 35 New Gravitational-Wave Events

Nov 10, 2021 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration have detected a further 35 gravitational waves since the last catalog release in October 2020,...

This artist’s impression shows NGP-190387, a dusty star-forming galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ALMA Detects Fluorine in Distant Star-Forming Galaxy

Nov 8, 2021 by News Staff

Fluorine is one of the most interesting elements for nuclear and stellar astrophysics. Fluorine abundance was first measured for stars other than the Sun...

Levin et al suggest that we could have more in common with our extraterrestrial neighbors than initially thought. Image credit: Fernando Ribas.

Astrobiologists Call for New Framework in Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Nov 8, 2021 by News Staff

The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has been a source of wonder for humanity for millennia or more. Advances in planetary sciences, astronomy,...

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