science wire

On September 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes that had spiraled together and merged.

The University of Bern is participating in the international NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe mission (IMAP), which is due to be launched no earlier than 23 September 2025.

The US National Science Foundation LIGO ( Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory ) has been called the most precise ruler in the world for its ability to measure motions smaller than 1/10,000 the width of a proton.

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission has split the flood of energetic particles flung out into space from the Sun into two groups, tracing each back to a different kind of outburst from our star.

The complicated structure at the centre of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. There is a bright source at the centre that is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink.

Three views of the same nebula, presented side by side. The left and middle images, which are labeled 'Hubble Optical' and 'Hubble Near IR', show the nebula at roughly the same scale.

The next-generation radio telescope will leverage Canadian astronomical leadership to unveil the mysteries of the cosmos Construction is underway of CHORD, the most ambitious radio telescope project ever built on Canadian soil.

Investigating solar corona structures has led Paul Bellan, Caltech professor of applied physics, and his former graduate student Yang Zhang (PhD '24) to discover a new equilibrium state of the magnetic field and its associated plasma. The solar corona, the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere, is much less dense than the Sun's surface but is a million times hotter.

A new kind of stellar explosion provides a novel way to probe the distant Universe, according to new results published today in Nature Astronomy.

Three innovative new projects to explore Earth and the cosmos have been selected to move forward through the Brinson Exploration Hub at Caltech.

PARTICLE PHYSICS Physicists from the University of Copenhagen have begun using the gigantic magnetic fields of galaxy clusters to observe distant black holes in their search for an elusive particle that has stumped scientists for decades. It is a story of extremes that are hard to fathom. The heaviest structures in the universe, clusters of galaxies, are a quadrillion times more massive than the Sun.

Old satellites and debris pose a danger to space travel. An international research team with participation from Würzburg is working on a satellite that cleans up space - inspired by the animal kingdom.

A look into the throat of an active galaxy reveals a ring-shaped magnetic field that may explain extreme gamma radiation and neutrinos To the point A look into the heart of an active galaxy: Astronomers have captured an image of the origin of a cosmic jet.

A cosmic dance could be the future of the Milky Way as it tracks a course to collide with neighbouring galaxies, new research has found.

An international team of astronomers have discovered a remarkably clumpy rotating galaxy that existed just 900 million years after the Big Bang, shedding new light on how galaxies grew and evolved in the early Universe.

Lava planets may sound like science fiction, but they're very real for astrophysics Lisa Dang , who is studying them as a larger team of international researchers looking to further explore their inner workings.

In a world facing complex challenges, engineers like ANU researcher Karthika Prasad play an important role in creating out-of-this-world solutions.

Robotics engineers at the University of Würzburg have developed a novel 3D laser scanner system for precise plant analysis in the field for the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy in Potsdam. Whether strawberries, asparagus or apples: when it comes to harvesting, skilled workers are often in short supply.

An international team of scientists has announced groundbreaking observations of GRB 221009A, the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded.

A new laboratory experiment uses a water vortex to investigate how planets form from material in protoplanetary gas and dust disks To the point Simple laboratory model for cosmic flows developed: A water tornado enables a realistic simulation of the dynamics of gas and dust in planet-forming discs.

The most massive black holes ever observed with gravitational waves have been discovered by scientists, with some of the analyses carried out by an international team that was led by an astrophysicist at the University of Glasgow.

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has detected the merger of the most massive black holes ever observed with gravitational waves using the US National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO observatories.

A comet is hurtling into our solar system from interstellar space at about 152,000 miles per hour. The comet, named 3I/ATLAS, was discovered by the NASA-funded  ATLAS  (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, on July 1.

A new study has proposed the existence of a new type of cosmic object that could be hiding at the centre of our galaxy. This new research was led by Dr Djuna Croon from our top-rated Physics department, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Hawai'i and the University of Liverpool. The research team also included an undergraduate student from our Physics department.

Dr Cyril Bourgenot from our Centre for Advanced Instrumentation is part of a team developing cutting-edge technology to enable astronomers to look deeper into the Universe.

When white dwarfs-the hot remnants of stars like our Sun-are orbited closely by another star, they sometimes steal mass away from their companion. The stolen matter builds up on the surface of the white dwarf, triggering eruptions called novae. Theorists have long predicted how these volatile partnerships, called cataclysmic variables (CVs), form, but now a new Caltech-led study reveals a surprising twist: In some cases, a third star, circling farther away from the primary pair, may in fact be the reason the star couple got together in the first place.

Chi Nguyen remembers the moment she plugged her laptop into a large monitor in a conference room and onlookers began to cheer.

A team of researchers from the Intelligent Energy Systems sector of SUPSI's Institute for Applied Sustainability in the Built Environment (ISAAC) took first place in the NASA & DNV Challenge on Optimisation Under Uncertainty 2025.

Iris - the lunar rover built by 300 students across Carnegie Mellon University's seven colleges - will head back to the moon.

This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-Doe Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time.

The newly released first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile mark the start of a ten-year mission involving UCL researchers to create an ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of the Universe and help to pin down what dark energy might be. The observatory is named in honour of a trailblazing US astronomer who discovered evidence for dark matter.