news 2013

The maths underpinning Darwin's theory of natural selection could explain how the universe may be 'designed' to make black holes. New Oxford University research builds on the 'cosmological natural selection hypothesis' - an idea first put forward in the 1990s to explain the apparent 'fine-tuning' of the universe's basic parameters to allow for the existence of atoms, galaxies, and life itself.

Herschel bows out with study that shows early galaxies 'cooler' than predicted Physicists analysing observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have shown that galaxies in the early Universe were cooler than those we see around us today. The study draws on the star survey work of the HerMES project 1 led by Professor Seb Oliver at the University of Sussex and indicates that early galaxies were more bloated, contained more dust and were distributed over larger regions than previously thought.

Astronomers have spotted a galaxy that is igniting new stars faster than ever seen before. Measurements from several instruments show that gas in this galaxy is condensing to form stars close to the maximum rate thought possible. Infrared light pours from the galaxy, just a tiny red dot in this wide-angle view of the sky captured by WISE.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have measured for the first time the effect of gravity on antihydrogen – the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen – marking an important step in understanding how antimatter behaves. Whilst scientific evidence led scientists to assume that antihydrogen had exactly the same properties as hydrogen, it had not been proven.

Antimatter is strange stuff. It has the opposite electrical charge to matter and, when it meets its matter counterpart, the two annihilate in a flash of light. Four University of California, Berkeley, physicists are now asking whether matter and antimatter are affected differently by gravity as well.

27 Apr 2013 A subtle difference between matter and antimatter has been observed for the first time by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The work forms part of studies to understand why the Universe only contains matter when it is believed that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the time of the Big Bang.

The LHCb collaboration at CERN has made its first observations of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the decays of the particle known as the B0s. Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe, but today the universe appears to be composed essentially of matter.

Astronomers have found a galaxy turning gas into stars with almost 100 percent efficiency, a rare phase of galaxy evolution that is the most extreme yet observed. The findings come from the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in the French Alps, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Civil engineering's Reed leads effort to enhance scientists' understanding of global precipitation using NSF's Blue Waters supercomputer UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. A research team including Penn State engineers will use one of the world's most powerful computers to enhance scientists' understanding of global precipitation.

Civil engineering's Reed leads effort to enhance scientists' understanding of global precipitation using NSF's Blue Waters supercomputer UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. A research team including Penn State engineers will use one of the world's most powerful computers to enhance scientists' understanding of global precipitation.

A University of Washington astronomer has discovered perhaps the most Earthlike planet yet found outside the solar system by the Kepler Space Telescope. Eric Agol , a UW associate professor of astronomy, has identified Kepler 62f, a small, probably rocky planet orbiting a sunlike star in the Lyra constellation.

Astrophysicists discover earliest known 'starburst' galaxy in Universe University of Sussex astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory are part of an international team that has discovered a distant star-forming galaxy that challenges the current theories of galaxy evolution. Seen when the Universe was less than a billion years old (880 million years) the galaxy, known only as "HFLS3", is forming stars at a much faster rate than should be possible according to existing predictions.

Astronomers have discovered an extremely distant galaxy that is expanding by more than 2000 new stars each year. Using the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory they have seen images of the galaxy as it was when the Universe was less than a billion years old. This is the most active that astronomers have seen such a young galaxy and since this discovery they are re-thinking some fundamental ideas about how galaxies form and evolve over time.

This composite of images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the remnant of Kepler's supernova in low-energy (red), intermediate-energy (green) and high-energy (blue) X-rays. The background is an optical star field taken from the Digitized Sky Survey. The distance to the object is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 13,000 to 23,000 light-years, but recent studies favor the maximum range.

ANN ARBOR-Mars has lost much of its original atmosphere, but what's left remains active, according to recent findings from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity that involve a University of Michigan researcher. Rover team members reported diverse findings today at the European Geosciences Union 2013 General Assembly, in Vienna, Austria.

ANN ARBOR-The rare Green Pea galaxies discovered by the general public in 2007 could help confirm astronomers' understanding of reionization, a pivotal stage in the evolution of the early universe, say University of Michigan researchers. Reionization occurred a few hundred million years after the Big Bang as the first stars were turning on and forming the first galaxies.

As the shapes of galaxies go, the spiral disk — with its characteristic pinwheel profile — is by far the most pedestrian. This image and the video animation below show a simulation of arm formation in spiral galaxies. The simulation was performed by UW-Madison astrophysicist Elena D'Onghia, who led new research in the area along with Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics colleagues Mark Vogelsberger and Lars Hernquist.

Cambridge, MA - Spiral galaxies are some of the most beautiful and photogenic residents of the universe. Our own Milky Way is a spiral. Our solar system and Earth reside somewhere near one of its filamentous arms. And nearly 70 percent of the galaxies closest to the Milky Way are spirals. But despite their common shape, how galaxies like ours get and maintain their characteristic arms has proved to be an enduring puzzle in astrophysics.

New research from the Antarctic Peninsula published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that the summer melt season has been getting longer over the last 60 years. Dr Nick Barrand from the University of Birmingham led an analysis of data from 30 weather stations on the Antarctic Peninsula - a mountainous region extending northwards towards South America.

Using information gathered from samples of deep sea sediments, researchers from the University of Bristol report new findings regarding the dynamics of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Indonesia in 1815 - one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 1,000 years. Interpretation and understanding of such past eruptions are important for the assessment of hazards related to future eruptions.