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Astronomers have carried out a multiwavelength investigation of a pulsar wind nebula (PWN), designated DA 495, to unveil its mysterious physical nature. Results of the study, based on observations using HAWC and VERITAS ground-based observatories as well as NASA’s NuSTAR spacecraft, are presented in a paper published May 17 on arXiv.org.

Pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are nebulae powered by the wind of a pulsar. Pulsar wind is composed of charged particles; when it collides with the pulsar’s surroundings, in particular with the slowly expanding supernova ejecta, it develops a PWN.

Particles in PWNe lose their energy to radiation and become less energetic with distance from the central pulsar. Multiwavelength studies of these objects, including X-ray observations, especially using spatially-integrated spectra in the X-ray band, have the potential of uncovering important information about particle flow in these nebulae. This could unveil important insights into the nature of PWNe in general.

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PARTICLE physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are tracking down elusive particles of dark matter with the aid of dark photons, CERN has spectacularly announced.

And if they exist, are there alternate-reality versions of you out there, too?

The first simulations of matter and antimatter particles swirling around a rotating black hole hint at the origins of the enigmatic jets. The first simulations of matter and antimatter particles swirling around a rotating black hole hints at the origins of the enigmatic jets.

Some cosmologists have predicted the existence of “walls bounded by strings” in the aftermath of the Big Bang, and now a team of physicists have created these quantum structures on Earth for the first time.

An international team of scientists has created tiny droplets of the ultra-hot matter that once filled the early universe, forming three distinct shapes and sizes: circles, ellipses and triangles.

The study, published December 10, 2018 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Physics, focuses on a liquid-like state of matter called a quark gluon plasma. Physicists believe that this matter filled the entire universe during the first few microseconds after the Big Bang when the universe was still too hot for particles to come together to make atoms.

The researchers used a massive collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, to recreate that plasma. In a series of tests, the researchers smashed packets of protons and neutrons in different combinations into much bigger atomic nuclei. They discovered that by carefully controlling conditions, they could generate droplets of quark gluon plasma that expanded to form three different geometric patterns.

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DARK matter binds together our galaxy and many others like it when though we cannot see it or directly detect it – but what if the dark matter mystery could be solved using black holes and subatomic particles known as axions?

What is dark matter made of? It’s one of the most perplexing questions of modern astronomy. We know that dark matter is out there, since we can see its obvious gravitational influence on everything from galaxies to the evolution of the entire universe, but we don’t know what it is. Our best guess is that it’s some sort of weird new particle that doesn’t like to talk to normal matter very often (otherwise, we would have seen it by now). One possibility is that it’s an exotic hypothetical kind of particle known as an axion, and a team of astronomers are using none other than black holes to try to get a glimpse into this strange new cosmic critter.

Axion Agenda

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New research suggests that the Big Bang that birthed the cosmos occurred 12.5 billion years ago.

The Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, is nearly 200,000 light-years from Earth. ESA / Hubble / Josh Lake / via AFP — Getty Images.