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Archive for the ‘cosmology’ category: Page 347

Apr 28, 2018

Dream About the Future of Big Telescopes; Monster Space Telescopes That Could Fly by the 2030s

Posted by in categories: cosmology, space travel

With the recent launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – which took place on Wednesday, April 18th, 2018 – a lot of attention has been focused on the next-generation space telescopes that will be taking to space in the coming years. These include not only the James Webb Space Telescope, which is currently scheduled for launch in 2020, but some other advanced spacecraft that will be deployed by the 2030s.

Such was the subject of the recent 2020 Decadal Survey for Astrophysics, which included four flagship mission concepts that are currently being studied. When these missions take to space, they will pick up where missions like Hubble, Kepler, Spitzer and Chandra left off, but will have greater sensitivity and capability. As such, they are expected to reveal a great deal more about our Universe and the secrets it holds.

As expected, the mission concepts submitted to the 2020 Decadal Survey cover a wide range of scientific goals – from observing distant black holes and the early Universe to investigating exoplanets around nearby stars and studying the bodies of the Solar System. These ideas were thoroughly vetted by the scientific community, and four have been selected as being worthy of pursuit.

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Apr 28, 2018

Ask Ethan: How Big Will The Universe Get?

Posted by in category: cosmology

Dark energy means that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating. But how big will it get, and how fast?

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Apr 26, 2018

This Megamerger of 14 Galaxies Could Become The Most Massive Structure in Our Universe

Posted by in category: cosmology

Peering billions of light-years back to when the Universe was just 10 percent of its current age, astronomers have spotted a colossal pile-up: 14 young, starbursting galaxies merging into one of the most massive structures in the Universe.

Using some of the most powerful telescopes in operation today, an international research team discovered the extremely dense concentration of hot galaxies careening towards each other.

Eventually the megamerger will form a cluster of galaxies, gravitationally bound by dark matter and ultimately smooshing together into one ginormous galaxy.

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Apr 24, 2018

Astronomers Witness a Galactic “Megamerger” from the Beginning of the Universe

Posted by in category: cosmology

A team of international astronomers managed to observe 14 individual galaxies about to undergo an “megamerger” and become one humongous galaxy. This cataclysmic, yet formative process of our universe gives researchers the ability to see how celestial structures formed not too long after the Big Bang.

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Apr 23, 2018

Endless Energy and Black Hole Bombs

Posted by in categories: cosmology, existential risks

A spinning black hole could provide enough energy to power civilization for trillions of years — and create the biggest bomb known to the universe. Using the rotation of a black hole to supercharge electromagnetic waves could create massive amounts of energy or equally massive amounts of destruction. Kurzgesagt explains what it would take to harness a black hole and the potential risks of the process.

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Apr 21, 2018

Big Bang, Big Claim: Why This Bold Idea Is Right

Posted by in category: cosmology

The Big Bang origin of the universe may sound incredible, but there’s solid evidence backing up the bold claim.

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Apr 20, 2018

Ultra-Cold Atoms Recreate the Expanding Universe in Tabletop Experiment

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics, quantum physics

Eerie similarities unite vastly different scientific ideas in sometimes utterly surprising ways. One of these similarities may have allowed scientists to recreate the expanding universe—on a countertop.

Researchers accomplished their feat using Bose-Einstein condensates, which are collections of certain atoms held to the near coldest-possible temperatures. Bose-Einstein condensates let scientists see teeny quantum mechanical effects on a much larger scale, and have been used to do lots and lots of wild physics. These scientists hope they can use its quirks to model the behavior of the far grander cosmos.

“It’s hard to test theories of cosmology,” study author Gretchen Campbell, from the University of Maryland’s Joint Quantum Institute, told Gizmodo. “Maybe we can actually find a way to study some cosmological models on the laboratory scale.”

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Apr 19, 2018

The First Black Hole Close-Up

Posted by in category: cosmology

An Earth-sized telescope will capture the unseeable.

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Apr 18, 2018

How to blow up a star

Posted by in category: cosmology

Supernova simulations are resolving a 50-year-old mystery about stellar death throes.

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Apr 17, 2018

Wormholes Could Cast ‘Shadows’ That We Can Detect

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Wormholes, or hypothetical tunnels through space-time that allow faster-than-light travel, could potentially leave dark, telltale imprints in the sky that might be seen with telescopes, a new study suggests.

These slightly bent, oblong wormhole “shadows” could be distinguished from the more circular patches left by black holes and, if detected, could show that the cosmic shortcuts first proposed by Albert Einstein more than a century ago are, in fact, real, one researcher says.

Wormholes are cosmic shortcuts, tunnels burrowing through hyperspace. Hop in one end, and you could emerge on the other side of the universe — a convenient method of hyperfast travel that’s become a trope of science fiction. [8 Ways You Can See Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Real Life].

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