universe

Dark energy may not have much in common with aliens, unless there's a flotilla of freaky monoliths out there with really weird physical properties. But astrophysicists hope to build a two-in-one space telescope that can search for signs of dark energy along with exoplanets.

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While Robert Frost famously said that he prefers the world to end in fire, physicists have long predicted the universe will end with an icy sputter known as "heat death." Heat death occurs when the universe finally uses up all its energy, with all motion stopping and all the atoms in creation grinding to a halt. And, based on new calculations from a team of Australian physicists, it looks like heat death is far closer than previously thought.

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A 100-ton antenna has arrived at a plateau in the Chilean Andes as the first piece of the world's largest astronomical observatory. The ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is designed to observe light with millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths -- between infrared light and radio waves – and help astronomers see light from some of the coldest and most distant objects at the edge of the observable universe.

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Dark energy is a mysterious force that cosmologists use to fill gaps in our model of why our universe continues its ever-faster expansion. But now two mathematicians have found a way to explain those baffling observations of the universe without the dark energy question mark hanging overhead.

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Good news for astrophysicists and fans of massive thermonuclear explosions alike: a team of mathematicians at the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working alongside two astrophysicists from Stony Brook University and U.C. Santa Cruz, have modeled the hours leading up to a Type Ia supernova, capturing the gritty details of the cataclysmic death of a white dwarf star for the first time.

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We always like to look forward to bigger and better tech, but NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, though it's been around the block, still holds a special place in every geek's heart. Now the freshly repaired and upgraded telescope has resumed churning out enough images of cosmic glory to turn anyone's head.

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There is no denying we humans are obsessed with real estate. We always like to think we've landed ourselves a prime piece of land to settle on, and that outlook extends past your home, vacation home, and country and all the way out to the Earth itself.

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For centuries, the creation of the universe has loomed large in human thought, cropping up in everything from ancient folklore to modern scientific theories. A newly-developed nano-sized device, 100 times smaller than the thickness of human hair and capable of detecting infrared light that dates back to the "big bang," could soon give us more food for thought concerning the galaxy's formation 14 billion years ago.

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Considering the birth rate, astronomers might have named this the Rabbit Galaxy. According to a new paper in today’s issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have discovered a galaxy that birthed stars 400 times faster than our Milky Way, overturning previously held ideas about the formation of giant galaxies

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