They were much brighter than they were supposed to be.
Astronomers finally find the earliest molecule in the Universe
The breakthrough validates our current models of how the universe works.
Stephen Hawking: before the Big Bang there was nothing
It was a mind-blowing appearance by Professor Hawking.
Breakthrough in the search for dark matter from the first ever stars
It’s an exciting time to be a scientist.
We’ve just found the earliest traces of hydrogen, showing when the first-ever stars ignited
We’ve learned a lot about the early universe.
What is the Big Bang theory — how the Universe came to be
Quite possibly the biggest question in modern science.
New mathematical model analyzes early Universe
Swiss physicists have developed a new model to chart the early development of the Universe in better detail than ever before.
Just one billion years following the Big Bang, water may had been as abundant as it is today
Water may have been plentiful in some parts of the universe as early as one billion years after the Big Bang, a new model suggests. That’s a lot earlier than scientists had previously presumed, seeing how at the very beginning the only elements were hydrogen and helium. Seeing how water is comprised of one oxygen atom (16 times heavier than hydrogen) and two hydrogen atoms, then we should have seen water much later, or so the thinking goes.
New study suggests Big Bang never occurred, Universe existed forever
Climate change is a threat to all life and vegetation here on Earth, but some places are worse off than others. Take Mongolia for instance. Over the past 30 years, a quarter of the country’s surface has turned into a desert, while 850 lakes and 2,000 rivers have dried out. This rapid desertification has severely disrupted habitats, making it very difficult for both man and beast to adapt. Even to this day, 25% of Mongolians living in the country are thought to be nomadic, still holding on to ancient traditions from the times when the great Khans swept the world and made it tremble, from Beijing to Rome. In the face of such diversity, the Mongolian people risk losing their heritage and way of life, as they’ve come to know it for thousands of years.
Gravity waves laid to dust: when scientists get way ahead of themselves
Nobel prizes, international press coverage, awards – these were all promises and cheers thrown about all over the web after a team of physicists trumpeted during a conference at Harvard that they’ve made one of the biggest discoveries in science: gravity waves. Some theories claim that these waves were generated brief moments following the Big Bang, and a team of researchers
First direct evidence supporting the “Cosmic Inflation” theory helps explains how the Universe came to be
The BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole reported the first ever piece of evidence that support the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe cam to be. Their data suggests that scientists have come across signals left over by the super-rapid expansion of space that must have occurred just fractions of a second after everything came into being. Nothing short of
Scientists reproduce conditions from early universe
Physicists have successfully reproduced a pattern resembling the cosmic microwave background radiation in an experiment which used ultracold cesium atoms in a vacuum chamber. This is the first experiment which recreates at least some of the conditions from the Big Bang. “This is the first time an experiment like this has simulated the evolution of structure in the early universe,”
New cosmology model claims Universe may not be expanding
Physicists today and the theories they currently elaborate are seemingly entrenched in one major idea: that the Big Bang occurred once in a moment of singularity (infinitely dense Universe) and has expanded ever since. Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, has an alternate view. He believes the Universe is not expanding, and that all particles
Quantum theory takes out singularity, suggests black holes are wormholes
Black holes are the single most interesting and puzzling objects in our Universe – that we know of. But as if they weren’t mysterious enough, researchers have found that if you apply a quantum theory of gravity to these bizarre objects, the all-crushing singularity at their core disappears, opening a whole new Universe of possibilities – literally. What we know
The Big Bang didn’t need God to happen, says Stephen Hawking @ Caltech. Also, dark matter discovery seen as most immediate goal
Renowned physicist, famous for his study of black holes, galaxies and for authoring a popular book on the origin of the universe, “A Brief History of Time”, recently arrived at Caltech, like every year, where he held a talk in front of 1,000 people who had waited in line for 12 hours to hear him speak. Hawking’s talk, as always, encompassed discussions pertaining
Scientists create a remix of the Big Bang sound
A decade ago, American physics professor John Cramer released an audio file which made history: the sound of the theorized Big Bang that formed the universe. Now, armed with new data and more observations, Cramer has released a remix – an improved version of the universe’s first one hit wonder. “In general, there are no sounds in space, because there is
Map of the earliest recorded light paints broad picture of the ancient Universe
Using the incredible Planck cosmology probe astronomers at the European Space Agency have assembled a map of the “oldest light” in the sky – the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that was thrown into space in all directions just a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang and which is still picked up here on Earth today. What’s exciting about the map
Farthest known object in the Universe is 13.3 billion years old
NASA scientists have announced they have discovered the farthest object discovered so far in the Universe, a 13.3 billion old galaxy or a mere 420 million years after the Big Bang. That’s not to say that its 13.3 billion light years away from Earth, since the Universe has expanded greatly since then and the actual distance might be much greater
Faint galaxy sheds light on the dawn of the Universe – many more to be found
The first galaxies formed very fast after the Big Bang – in cosmic time, that is. It’s estimated that the earliest ones appeared some 500 million years after the Big Bang, a period about which researchers know very little. How they observed it Even though they are typically very bright, such galaxies are quite hard to observe because they are
Ethereal glow might harbor the Universe’s first objects
First discovered in 2005, and then studied in more depth since 2007, NASA scientists have finally isolated the ethereal glow thought to originate from the very first objects in the Universe with the highest precision yet. As seen in the image above, depicted in orange and red, the ‘lumpy’ infrared glow was observed using the ever faithful Spitzer Space Telescope,
