Tag: Cosmology
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
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…
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Nation & World
‘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…