https://www.livescience.com/physics-math...r-suggests EXCERPTS: In a new paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed, the physicists propose that our universe is dominated by tachyons — a hypothetical kind of particle that always moves faster than light. Tachyons almost certainly don't exist; going faster than light violates everything we know about the causal flow of time from past to future. But the hypothetical particles are still interesting to physicists because of the small chance that even our most closely held notions, like causality, might be wrong. The researchers suggest that tachyons ..read more

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024...e-universe World’s top cosmologists convene to question conventional view of the universe INTRO: If you zoomed out on the universe, well beyond the level of planets, stars or galaxies, you would eventually see a vast, evenly speckled expanse with no notable features. At least, that has been the conventional view. The principle that everything looks the same everywhere is a fundamental pillar of the standard model of cosmology, which aims to explain the big bang and how the universe has evolved in the 13.7bn years since. But this week a meeting of ..read more

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68787534 INTRO: Researchers have discovered the cause of the brightest burst of light ever recorded. But in doing so they have run up against two bigger mysteries, including one that casts doubt on where our heavy elements - like gold - come from. The burst of light, spotted in 2022, is now known to have had an exploding star at its heart, researchers say. But that explosion, by itself, would not have been sufficient to have shone so brightly. And our current theory says that some exploding stars, known as supernovas, might also produce the heavy ..read more

https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-ener...-20240404/ INTRO: Physicists have deduced subtle hints that the mysterious “dark” energy that drives the universe to expand faster and faster may be slightly weakening with time. It’s a finding that has the potential to shake the foundations of physics. “If true, it would be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years,” said Adam Riess, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering dark energy in 1998. The new observations come from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrumen ..read more

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240...-is-coming EXCERPTS: In most cases, Nasa experts have no idea when nova explosions are going to happen, says Cooke. But there are about 10 novas that are known as "recurrent novas", he explains. "A recurrent nova is a nova that periodically blows its top," continues Cooke. "And T Coronae Borealis is a prime example." [...] While the world's attention has been focused on the total solar eclipse that will occur later this spring, the distant Corona Borealis binary system – which contains one dead white dwarf star and one ageing red giant star – has b ..read more

How did matter come to exist in our Universe? https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...ter-exist/ KEY POINTS: In all the particle physics reactions we've ever created, measured, or observed here on Earth, matter and antimatter can only ever be created or destroyed in equal amounts. But somehow, what emerged from the ashes of the hot Big Bang led to a matter-dominated Universe, with scarcely any antimatter around at all. This is one of the greatest mysteries in physics: the puzzle of why we live in a matter-dominated Universe, also known as the baryogenesis puzzle. Here's what science knows ..read more

Time distortion? So if we finally do detect white holes resulting from small, primordial black holes someday, the output would actually be from the past (in more ways than just light having to travel across distances measured in light-years). - - - - - - - - - - - - Are white holes dawning at last? https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/are-white-...ng-at-last PRESS RELEASE: As opposed to black holes, white holes are thought to eject matter and light while never absorbing any. Detecting these as yet hypothetical objects could not only provide evidence of quantum gravity but also explain the origin of ..read more

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024...ark-matter EXCERPTS: Dark matter is supposed to account for 85% of the mass in the universe, according to conventional scientific wisdom. But proponents of a radical new theory of gravity, in which space-time is “wobbly”, say their approach could render the elusive substance obsolete. The proposition, outlined in a new paper, raises the controversial possibility that dark matter, which has never been directly observed, is a mirage that a substantial portion of the physics community has been chasing for several decades. The theory is viewed as quite ..read more

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024...deep-space INTRO: Astronomers have observed a distant planet that could be entirely covered in a deep water ocean, in findings that advance the search for habitable conditions beyond Earth. The observations, by Nasa’s James Webb space telescope (JWST), revealed water vapour and chemical signatures of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, which is twice Earth’s radius and about 70 light years away. This chemical mix is consistent with a water world where the ocean would span the entire surface, and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere ..read more

The handful of six-pointed objects are stars in the Milky Way foreground. Everything else in the photo is another galaxy!! Each one with millions of stars! And this is just one tiny portion of the sky. Lots of powers of ten. [Image: GH2rfYZWwAAockn?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 ..read more