Category Astronomy/Space

Uppsala University researchers have devised a new model for the Universe – one that may solve the enigma of dark energy. Their new article, published in Physical Review Letters, proposes a new structural concept, including dark energy, for a universe that rides on an expanding bubble in an additional dimension.

We have known for the past 20 years that the Universe is expanding at an ever accelerating rate. The explanation is the “dark energy” that permeates it throughout, pushing it to expand...

Using MAGIC telescopes and NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, an international team of astronomers has discovered a new source of very high energy gamma-ray emission around the supernova remnant (SNR) G24.7+0.6.

Supernova remnants are basically leftovers of massive stars that ended their lives in huge explosions called supernovae. Astronomers generally distinguish three types of SNRs, one of which is the composite SNR—these having rapidly expanding shells from the supernova blast wave accompanied by wind nebulae powered by young pulsars formed in the explosions.

Observations show that composite SNRs are known to accelerate particles to very high e...

Three and a half years after giving humanity its first close-up view of Pluto, and almost 13 years after launching from Earth, the New Horizons spacecraft will explore another new frontier: a reddish hunk of rock and ice known as Ultima Thule.

The object—or, perhaps, pair of objects (it’s so far away astronomers aren’t sure) – is thought to be a pristine remnant of the early solar system, untouched for billions of years. Its nickname conveys its significance, meaning “beyond the known world.”

Ultima Thule is 4 billion miles from Earth. New Horizons will reach it as the new year arrives on Jan. 1, with a mission to collect as many images and as much data as possible while speeding past at 32,000 miles per hour...

Uranus is a lopsided oddity, the only planet to spin on its side. Scientists now think they know how it got that way: It was pushed over by a rock at least twice as big as Earth...