Category Astronomy/Space

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 slotted in the final missing piece of the Standard Model puzzle. Yet, it left lingering questions. What lies beyond this framework? Where are the new phenomena that would solve the universe’s remaining mysteries, such as the nature of dark matter and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry?

One parameter that may hold clues about new physics phenomena is the “width” of the W boson, the electrically charged carrier of the weak force. A particle’s width is directly related to its lifetime and describes how it decays to other particles. If the W boson decays in unexpected ways, such as into yet-to-be-discovered new particles, these will influence the measured width.

As the Standard Model precisely predicts its value based on the strength o...

Research has uncovered important new insights into the evolution of oxygen, carbon, and other vital elements over the entire history of Earth – and it could help assess which other planets can develop life, ranging from plants to animals and humans.

The study, published today in Nature Geoscience and led by a researcher at the University of Bristol, reveals for the first time how the build up of carbon-rich rocks has accelerated oxygen production and its release into the atmosphere.

Until now the exact nature of how the atmosphere became oxygen-rich has long eluded scientists and generated conflicting explanations.

As carbon dioxide is steadily emitted by volcanoes, it ends up entering the ocean and forming rocks like limestone.

As global stocks of these rocks build up t...

Researchers using Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, have detected unusual radio pulses from a previously dormant star with a powerful magnetic field.

New results published today in Nature Astronomy describe radio signals from magnetar XTE J1810-197 behaving in complex ways.

Magnetars are a type of neutron star and the strongest magnets in the Universe. At roughly 8,000 light years away, this magnetar is also the closest known to Earth.

Most are known to emit polarised light, though the light this magnetar is emitting is circularly polarised, where the light appears to spiral as it moves through space.

Dr Marcus Lower, a postdoctoral fellow at Australia’s national science agency...

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) have helped to detect a remarkable gravitational-wave signal, which could hold the key to solving a cosmic mystery.

The discovery is from the latest set of results announced by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA co...