Scientists propose that some dead stars made of the densest material in the known universe, so-called ‘neutron stars’, could act as traps for dark matter particles to collide at high speed and destroy each other. The crew says the destruction process likely heats the dead stars from within. In general, dark matter is a problematic … Read more
When it comes to primordial black holes being dark matter suspects, their alibi may fall apart. Small black holes, created seconds after the universe’s birth, can survive longer than expected, reviving suspicion that primordial black holes could be responsible for dark matter, the universe’s most mysterious stuff. Dark matter currently represents one of the most … Read more
It has been more than twenty years since dark energy was discovered. Scientists have therefore had more than twenty years to decipher the secrets of this invisible substance that seems to be pulling the universe apart. Yet they still know virtually nothing about it. Dark energy may not even be a substance. It could be … Read more
As people struggle to understand dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerated expansion of the universe, scientists are beginning to wonder about something rather futuristic. Can computers do better? Well, initial results from a team that used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to infer the influence of dark energy with unprecedented precision may suggest an … Read more
Plans for the successor to the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are in full swing. The new atom smasher, called the Future Circular Collider (FCC), will dwarf the LHC in size and power. It will fuse particles with so much energy that scientists say it could be able … Read more
As the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) examines small and bright galaxies in the early universe, it may shed light on dark matter – the universe’s most mysterious matter. That is the conclusion of scientists at the University of California, who conducted a simulation of the cosmos that tracks the formation of small galaxies – … Read more
The universe could be younger than we think, based on the movements of satellite galaxies that reveal how recently they fell into a group of galaxies. According to measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) by the European Space Agency‘s Planck mission, the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. This calculation is based … Read more
Images taken by NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could allow scientists to search for dark matter among stars. An international team of researchers believes that gaps in strings of stars hanging from tightly packed spheres of old stellar bodies, called globular clusters, could be influenced by clumps of dark matter. Until now, astronomers … Read more
A composite image of the Bullet Cluster, a much-studied pair of galaxy clusters that have collided head-on. One has gone through the other, like a bullet going through an apple, and it is believed that there are clear signs of dark matter (blue) separated from hot gases (pink). Life has made a home on Earth … Read more
A large discrepancy between different measurements of the expansion rate of our universe could be explained if our galaxy, the Milky Way, is located in a void of two billion light years. That is the conclusion of scientists who claim that a modified theory exists gravity can replace the standard model of cosmology. However, this … Read more