Featured series 
Tag: Cosmology
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Science & Tech
Is E.T. flashing us?
Harvard recently broke ground for a new telescope to look for extraterrestrial beacons. This instrument will be capable of covering a million times more celestial space than the present instrument the University uses for its alien search. “A high-intensity pulsed laser, teamed with a moderate sized telescope, forms an efficient interstellar beacon,” says Physics Professor…
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Science & Tech
Dark night sky tells us about structure and formation of solar system
The darkness of the night sky is one of astronomy’s great puzzles. An infinite universe uniformly filled with stars and galaxies should produce an infinitely bright night sky, Johannes Kepler concluded 400 years ago. So why is the sky dark? It has to do with the finite size of the Milky Way Galaxy and the…
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Science & Tech
Uncovering new evidence for ‘event horizons’ surrounding black holes
With results that fundamentally differ from earlier black hole studies, Harvard researchers have shown that some recently discovered black holes are not only ultra-dense, but actually possess event horizons that “vacuum up” energy from their surroundings. “Watching matter flowing into a black hole is like sitting upstream of a waterfall and watching the water seemingly…
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Science & Tech
Telescope will look toward the edge of the universe
A mountaintop in Chile provides one of the best places on Earth to see light that has been traveling toward our world for billions of years. “It’s an inspiring place to be on a clear night with the center of the Milky Way directly overhead,” says Robert Kirshner, a professor of astronomy. “You can see…
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Science & Tech
Astronomers resolve visible blast wave from gamma-ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are mysterious flashes of high-energy light that are detected about once a day somewhere in the sky. However, their origin remains unknown to astronomers, most of whom believe GRBs are enormous explosions that occur far across the Universe. Now for the first time, astronomers have resolved the visible blast wave produced by…
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Science & Tech
Gamma rays may be left over from cosmic construction project
The origin of the diffuse and pervasive background of gamma-ray radiation that exists over the universe has been one of the great unsolved mysteries in cosmology. Even the known population of powerful extragalactic gamma-ray sources, called “blazars,” can account for no more than a quarter of the gamma-ray background radiation that is observed. According to…
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Science & Tech
Cosmic pressure fronts mapped by Chandra
The collision of two giant clusters of galaxies has been imaged by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. For the first time, the pressure fronts in this system, which has been compared to a cosmic “weather system,” can be traced in detail. “We can compare this to an intergalactic cold front,” said Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard-Smithsonian…
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Science & Tech
South Pole telescope sees origin of starbursts
Astronomers have seen how star formation occurs in the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy by using a telescope based at the South Pole. The observations contribute to our knowledge of how stars form in “bursts” near the center of the galaxy at roughly 500-million-year intervals. The scientists were able to show that a…
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Science & Tech
Closing in on the ‘theory of everything’
A single theory describing nature’s four forces, called the “Theory of Everything,” has been the Holy Grail for physicists and other scientists seeking the universe’s deepest mysteries. Physicist Juan Maldacena has devised a way to explain gravity using a theory that also explains the other three basic forces of nature. And in this day of…
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Science & Tech
Little giants create a big cosmic controversy
A new measuring technique used to determine the distances to a class of stars called “Red Clumps” in the Large Magellanic Cloud produced a much smaller distance than that found by other popular methods of measurement. The smaller distance means that the universe may be expanding faster than previously thought — a finding which has…
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Science & Tech
Streamers of gas feed beast at center of our galaxy
Astronomers have long known that a supermassive black hole, more than 2 million times more massive than our Sun, lies at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy some 27,000 light-years from Earth. A point-like source of radio emission called Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”) marks the location of this black hole. Now researchers Robin S.…
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Science & Tech
‘Ultracold’ trap unveils secrets of matter in the universe
Physics Professor John Doyle traps the tiny particles that make up the universe and then studies them, looking for what they can tell him about the most basic rules of nature. Specifically, Doyle is looking for evidence of discrepancies in the theory known as the Standard Model, the major theory of how the basic particles…