Subscribe to Gizmag's RSS feed
Follow Gizmag on Twitter
Universe
World’s faster supercomputer models origins of the unseen universe
By Darren Quick
01:10 October 30, 2009 PDT
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
Femtoseconds lasers will help formation flying in space
14:26 October 6, 2009 PDT
Theoretical work commissioned to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) by the European Space Agency has recently concluded that lasers capable of generating extremely short pulses — known as "femtosecond comb lasers" — could be of great help in measuring the distance between two or more spacecraft to an accuracy of just a few microns, an essential component to formation flying space missions scheduled for the next decades. Read More
A hard rain's gonna fall on exoplanet COROT-7b
By Mick Webb
04:12 October 5, 2009 PDT
Raining rocks? The concept may not be as preposterous as it sounds according to scientists at Washington University in St Louis who have theorized that a recently-discovered exoplanet, COROT-7b, may have an atmosphere that does exactly that. Read More
Astronomers like what they see from rejuvenated NASA Hubble Space Telescope
By Jeff Salton
23:39 September 13, 2009 PDT
New images from the rejuvenated, more powerful Hubble Space Telescope have universally delighted astronomers. Last week, observations from four of its six operating science instruments were released by NASA. They include colorful, multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely-packed star cluster, an eerie ‘pillar of creation’, and a ‘butterfly’ nebula. Read More
X-ray telescope to shed light on dark energy
By Darren Quick
00:45 August 21, 2009 PDT
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
Large Hadron Collider readies for half-power restart
By Paul Lester
18:43 August 11, 2009 PDT
The date 10 September 2008 was forseen by some as the end of the world, at least if you believed scientists who were trying to pull the plug on an experiment that some dubbed the ‘Doomsday Test’. As it turned out a faulty electrical connection brought proceedings to a halt. Now the $9 billion ‘atom-smasher’, aka the Large Hadron Collider, which was developed by CERN to recreate the chemical reactions that took place when the universe came into existence around 14 billion years ago, is gearing up for a restart. Read More
Universe made simple with release of Meade ETX-LS automated telescope
22:31 June 15, 2009 PDT
Amateur astronomers around the world have cause to celebrate as the first completely hands-off self-aligning telescope becomes available. First shown as CES in January, the Meade ETX-LS telescope uses a range of technologies, including GPS, magnetic sensors and a built-in CCD camera, to automatically determine its own location and then find any of more than 100,000 celestial objects. Read More
Researchers show liquid could exist under observed Martian conditions
By David Greig
21:33 May 22, 2009 PDT
Despite falling silent late last year after five months on the arctic plains of the Red Planet, scientists around the globe continue to analyze data gathered by the Phoenix lander and uncover more clues in the search for evidence of life elsewhere. This latest news comes from researchers at the University of Arkansas who have shown that salts discovered at the Phoenix landing site have the potential to be found as liquid water - an essential ingredient for life - under the temperature and pressure conditions present on Mars. Read More
The most violent gamma-ray explosion ever observed
By Kyle Sherer
20:23 March 2, 2009 PST
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space telescope, which was launched on June 11 last year, has borne witness to the most violent gamma-ray burst ever observed – a monster that exceeded the power of 8000 supernovae. The GRB 080916C burst appeared in the Carina constellation, 12.2 billion light years from Earth, and was analyzed by five French teams, which published their results in the February 19 issue of Science Express. Read More
Cosmic Dawn simulation provides insights into the early universe
By Kyle Sherer
14:18 February 18, 2009 PST
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
Terotech
- November 21, 2009 @ 19:38 UTC
