How a new map of the early universe is like a hedgehog
November 13th, 2012 |
19
A new method for investigating dark energy has allowed astronomers to peer further back into the past than ever before, revealing a universe that was very different to the one we live in today. Today’s universe is expanding. Not just that, its expansion is accelerating. Galaxies are not only getting further away from us all [...]
Keep reading »
Black Hole Roundup
September 20th, 2012 |
5
Black holes, black holes, and more black holes. In the past few weeks I’ve been thinking, talking, and even dreaming about black holes (yes really, somnolent thoughts seem well suited to these fantastic objects). Mostly this has been an effect of my book Gravity’s Engines hitting the shelves, but it’s also because barely a day [...]
Keep reading »
Quasars at 50: Luminous Cosmic Beacons Remain a Puzzle
March 14th, 2013 |
7
Fifty years ago, in the journal Nature, astronomer Maarten Schmidt published a brief paper noting that a star-like object known as 3C 273 was simply too far away to be a star in the Milky Way. Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, concluded on the basis of spectroscopic observations that the object was most [...]
Keep reading »
See what we're tweeting about
