By eye, it’s impossible to pick out the exact boundaries of the superclusters, which are among the largest structures in the universe. But that’s because they are not defined by their edges, but by the common motion of their components.
The accelerated expansion of the present universe, believed to be driven by a mysterious dark energy, is one of the greatest puzzles in our understanding of the cosmos. The standard model of cosmology called Lambda-CDM, explains this expansion as a cosmological constant in Einstein's field equations. However, the cosmological constant itself lacks a complete theoretical understanding, particularly regarding its very small positive value.
Astronomers at Yale and the University of Hong Kong have proposed a new strategy for finding the universe’s first stars — by looking for signs of their final, fiery flares.
The detections more than double the number of known tidal disruption events in the nearby universe.
Star-shredding black holes are everywhere in the sky if you just know how to look for them. That’s one message from a new study by MIT scientists, appearing today in the Astrophysical Journal.
There is a vast menagerie of potentially habitable worlds in the cosmos, which means the Universe could be home to a diversity of life beyond what we can imagine. Creatures built on silicon rather than carbon, or organisms that breathe hydrogen instead of oxygen. But regardless of how strange and wondrous alien life may be, it is still governed by the same chemistry as life on Earth, and that means it needs a chemical solvent.
The Biggest Questions is a mini-series that explores how technology is helping probe some of the deepest, most mind-bending questions of our existence.
The accelerated expansion of the present universe, believed to be driven by a mysterious dark energy, is one of the greatest puzzles in our understanding of the cosmos. The standard model of cosmology called Lambda-CDM, explains this expansion as a cosmological constant in Einstein's field equations. However, the cosmological constant itself lacks a complete theoretical understanding, particularly regarding its very small positive value.
The detections more than double the number of known tidal disruption events in the nearby universe.
