Matter

22:55 November 22, 2009 PST

The successful restart of the Large Hadron Collider prompted scenes of jubilation

Contrary to claims by some scientists that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was being sabotaged from the future to save the world, it is back up and running. The LHC is now beyond the point where it was in 2008 when it had to be shut down just nine days after it had commenced sending beams around its 27km (17 mile) circuit on September 10 last year. Read More

RESEARCH WATCH

World’s faster supercomputer models origins of the unseen universe

By Darren Quick

01:10 October 30, 2009 PDT

Our current “Standard Model” of cosmology (left), a model without dark energy,...

Scientists have for some time postulated that "dark matter" could partially account for evidence of missing mass in the universe, while the hypothetical form of energy known as "dark energy" is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate and accounts for 74 percent of the total mass-energy of the universe according to the standard model of cosmology. To better understand these two mysterious cosmic constituents scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are using Roadrunner, the world’s fastest supercomputer, to model one of the largest simulations of the distribution of matter in the universe. Read More

SCIENCE AND EDUCATION

X-ray telescope to shed light on dark energy

By Darren Quick

00:45 August 21, 2009 PDT

The European XMM-Newton X-ray telescope in Earth orbit
(Image: ESA)

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Russia’s Roskosmos space agency are joining forces to try and shed some light on the poorly understood phenomenon referred to as ‘dark energy’. In 2012 the German 'extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array'(eROSITA) X-ray telescope will be taken into orbit on board the Russian Spektrum Roentgen Gamma (SRG) satellite to start searching for black holes and dark matter in an attempt to answer why the expansion of the universe is accelerating instead of slowing down. Read More

RESEARCH WATCH

This battle station is fully operational - the world's largest laser nears completion

By Darren Quick

15:36 March 5, 2009 PST

Artist's rendering showing a NIF target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams ...

Lasers, is there anything they can’t do? If they’re not shooting down UAVs, they’re fighting AIDS or bringing us the next generation of HDTVs. That’s all well and good, but when it comes to lasers there’s none bigger than the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California - an instrument capable of delivering 500 trillion watts of power in a 20-nanosecond burst which is now nearing completion. Its myriad uses will include providing fusion data for nuclear weapons simulations, probing the secrets of extrasolar planets and could even lead to the holy grail of energy production - practical fusion energy. Read More

RESEARCH WATCH

Cosmic Dawn simulation provides insights into the early universe

By Kyle Sherer

14:18 February 18, 2009 PST

The universe - 500 million years after the Big Bang.

Computational Cosmology – the use of simulations to shed light on astronomical mysteries – has provided scientists with a glimpse of what the universe may have looked like 500 million years after the Big Bang, when the first galaxies were forming in the universe’s “reionization” stage. The images, produced by scientists at Durham University, will provide researchers with key insights into dark matter, which remains frustratingly elusive, despite being first proposed in 1933 and making up an estimated 80% of the universe. Read More

Matter

Large Hadron Collider back up and running

World’s faster supercomputer models origins of the unseen universe

X-ray telescope to shed light on dark energy

This battle station is fully operational - the world's largest laser nears completion

Cosmic Dawn simulation provides insights into the early universe