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Category: cosmology – Page 55

Many seek a path to enlightenment through study and meditation, but what does science tell us about transcendence? And could entire civilizations seek to leave this reality behind?

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Credits:
Transcendence.
Episode 465; September 19, 2024
Written, Produced \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur.
Editors:
Dillon Ollander.
John M Smart.
Graphics:
Jeremy Jozwik.
Ken York.
Sergio Botero.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

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A newly discovered cluster-scale strong gravitational lens, with a rare alignment of seven background lensed galaxies, provides a unique opportunity to study cosmology.

In a rare and extraordinary discovery, researchers have identified a unique configuration of galaxies that form the most exquisitely aligned gravitational lens found to date. The Carousel Lens is a massive cluster-scale gravitational lens system that will enable researchers to delve deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos, including dark matter and dark energy.

“This is an amazingly lucky ‘galactic line-up’ — a chance alignment of multiple galaxies across a line-of-sight spanning most of the observable universe,” said David Schlegel, a co-author of the study and a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division. “Finding one such alignment is a needle in the haystack. Finding all of these is like eight needles precisely lined up inside that haystack.”

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In a groundbreaking discovery, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has presented data that directly challenges our current understanding of the universe. For years, cosmologists have pegged the universe’s age at approximately 13.8 billion years. Yet, the new JWST findings suggest that this may be a vast underestimation. But how has one telescope managed to disrupt such a long-held belief?

The universe’s secrets are vast, but none has been as puzzling as the presence of ‘impossible early galaxies’—so named due to their peculiar formation periods.

According to existing models, these galaxies, emerging during the cosmic dawn, roughly 500 to 800 million years post-big bang, shouldn’t have evolved disks and bulges so quickly. “It’s akin to seeing a toddler with the wisdom of an octogenarian,” says a scientist, explaining the paradox.

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A black hole analog could tell us a thing or two about an elusive radiation theoretically emitted by the real thing.

Using a chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, a team of physicists in 2022 observed the equivalent of what we call Hawking radiation – particles born from disturbances in the quantum fluctuations caused by the black hole’s break in spacetime.

This, they say, could help resolve the tension between two currently irreconcilable frameworks for describing the Universe: the general theory of relativity, which describes the behavior of gravity as a continuous field known as spacetime; and quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of discrete particles using the mathematics of probability.

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Dark matter, a mysterious substance thought to make up most of the universe’s mass, has puzzled scientists for nearly a century. First proposed by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort in 1932 to explain the “missing mass” needed for galaxies to stay together, it remains undetected despite decades of research. However, a recent study by Dr. Richard Lieu at The…

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XRISM is transforming our understanding of supermassive black holes and their galactic neighborhoods, providing high-resolution X-ray spectra that reveal complex structures like twisted accretion disks.

This groundbreaking international space mission, a collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and ESA, is only beginning to unveil the intricate details of black holes and their impact on galaxy formation, with early data already confirming long-held hypotheses.

Initial data from an international space mission is confirming decades of hypotheses about the galactic environments surrounding supermassive black holes. Yet, even more thrilling is the satellite behind this data—the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)—is just getting started providing such unparalleled insights.

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Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The international team, co-led by the University of Cambridge, used Webb to observe a galaxy roughly the size of the Milky Way in the early universe, about two billion years after the Big Bang. Like most large galaxies, it has a supermassive black hole at its center. However, this galaxy is essentially ‘dead’: it has mostly stopped forming new stars.

“Based on earlier observations, we knew this galaxy was in a quenched state: it’s not forming many stars given its size, and we expect there is a link between the black hole and the end of star formation,” said co-lead author Dr. Francesco D’Eugenio from Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology.

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An infrared detector is sensitive to a wide range of intensities and could potentially pick up biomarkers from exoplanet atmospheres.

Many areas of astrophysics, cosmology, and exoplanet research would benefit from a highly sensitive and stable detector for light at wavelengths in the 10–100 µm range. Now researchers report building a detector that operates at 25 µm and that is suitable for hours-long operation in a telescope pointed at faint sources [1]. The device exploits the extreme sensitivity to light of a superconducting material patterned into a miniature photo-absorptive structure. The researchers expect that the design will find use in space telescopes launched in the next few years.

Light at wavelengths in the range 10–100 µm may carry crucial spectroscopic clues about biogenic gases in exoplanet atmospheres and could also help astrophysicists pin down details of early planetary formation and galactic evolution. Yet building detectors for this range of wavelengths is challenging for several reasons, says astrophysicist Peter Day of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Because the light from these sources is so faint, the detector has to perform stably over many hours of observation. Each pixel of the detector has to be capable of registering single photons yet also be accurate for sources as much as 100,000 times brighter than the faintest detectable source. The detector must also have an efficient way to read out information rapidly from thousands of identical pixels.

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