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The fabric of the cosmos, as we currently understand it, comprises three primary components: 'normal matter,' 'dark energy,' and 'dark matter.' However, new research is turning this established model on its head. A recent study conducted by the University of Ottawa presents compelling evidence that challenges the traditional model of the universe, suggesting that there may not be a place for dark matter within it. Dark matter, a term used in cosmology, refers to the elusive substance that does not interact with light or electromagnetic fields and is only identifiable through its gravitational effects. Despite its mysterious nature, dark matter...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made a groundbreaking discovery: a galaxy that ceased forming new stars over 13 billion years ago, making it the oldest ‘dead’ galaxy ever observed. The galaxy, which existed a mere 700 million years after the Big Bang, is odd by galactic standards. Now, based on recent findings, it’s also challenging our understanding of early galaxy evolution. In research led by Tobias J. Looser and an international team of astronomers, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered an ancient quiescent galaxy. At a redshift of z=7.3, it is the oldest galaxy...

Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have characterised a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date. The black holes powering quasars collect matter from their surroundings in a process so energetic that it emits vast amounts of light....

Explanation: This dance is to the death. As these two large galaxies duel, a cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust currently stretches over 75,000 light-years and joins them. The bridge itself is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging...

Artist impression of a black hole accretion. Astronomers led by the University of Southampton have discovered the largest cosmic explosion ever observed, known as AT2021lwx. Over ten times brighter than any known supernova and three times brighter than the brightest tidal disruption event, the explosion has been ongoing for more than three years. Researchers believe the explosion is due to a massive gas cloud, possibly thousands of times larger than the sun, being violently disrupted by a supermassive black hole. Credit John A. Paice www.johnapaice.com Astronomers have discovered the largest cosmic explosion ever observed, AT2021lwx, which is believed to have...

What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? (This is why I lost faith in science.)Sabine Hossenfelder | 21:44 | 759K subscribers | 683K views | February 11, 2023

Mirabilis, one of the pairs of dwarf galaxies detected. (NASA/CXC/University of Alabama/M. Micic et al./International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) For the first time, astronomers have spotted evidence of a pair of dwarf galaxies featuring giant black holes on a collision course with each other. In fact, they haven't just found just one pair – they've found two. The first pair of merging dwarf galaxies is in the cluster Abell 133, about 760 million light-years away from Earth, and the other is in the Abell 1758S galaxy cluster, which is about 3.2 billion light-years away. It's hoped that these sightings and further investigations...

Black and white map showing 25,000 black holes These aren't ordinary stars. (LOFAR/LOL Survey) The image above may look like a fairly normal picture of the night sky, but what you're looking at is a lot more special than just glittering stars. Each of those white dots is an active supermassive black hole. And each of those black holes is devouring material at the heart of a galaxy millions of light-years away – that's how they could be pinpointed at all. Released in 2021, this image contains 25,000 such dots, It's the most detailed map to date of black holes...

'We found this galaxy to be super-chemically abundant, something none of us expected.' A gravitationally lensed view of a ring-shaped slice of the galaxy SPT0418-47, as seen by the ALMA array in Chile. Recent observations by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveal that the galaxy has a satellite that's rich in star formation. A gravitationally lensed view of a ring-shaped slice of the galaxy SPT0418-47, as seen by the ALMA array in Chile. Recent observations by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveal that the galaxy has a satellite that's rich in star formation. (Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Rizzo et al.)...

Scientists say that images from the James Webb Space Telescope may change how they understand the origins of the universe after they discovered "the impossible." The findings were published in the journal "Nature" on Wednesday. Astronomers expected to find "tiny, young, baby galaxies" from the cosmic history documented in the images, but they found something else entirely. The study's lead author, Ivo Labbé, explained how shocked he was when he realized what the images meant. "Little did I know that among the pictures is a small red dot that will shake up our understanding of how the first galaxies formed...

Astronomers have spotted a runaway supermassive black hole, seemingly ejected from its home galaxy and racing through space with a chain of stars trailing in its wake. - snip - The researchers discovered the runaway black hole as a bright streak of light while they were using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, located about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. Follow-up observations showed that the streak measures more than 200,000 light-years long — roughly twice the width of the Milky Way — and is thought to be made of compressed gas that is actively forming...

The discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies to roam interstellar space...The researchers discovered the runaway black hole as a bright streak of light while they were using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, located about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth.

Astronomers have sighted a supermassive black hole traveling through space that appears to have been ejected from its host galaxy. Researchers observing the dwarf galaxy designated RCP 28, roughly 7.5 billion light years away from our solar system, noticed an aberrant streak of light via the Hubble telescope. The “streak” appears to be a collection of stars being dragged out of their home galaxy by the immense gravitational force of a black hole. The “runaway” black hole is the first of its kind to be observed, and appears to have been ejected from its original galaxy. “We found a thin...

Black holes are powerful cosmic reactors. They supply the energy for quasars and other active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This is due to the interplay between matter and its enormous gravitational and magnetic forces. A black hole technically lacks a magnetic field, but the dense plasma surrounding it as an accretion disc does possess a magnetic field. As plasma spirals around a black hole, the charged particles inside it create an electrical current and magnetic field. The direction of plasma flow does not spontaneously vary, hence the magnetic field is likely rather stable. Imagine the researchers’ amazement when they discovered evidence...

An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton's laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In their work, the researchers investigated open star clusters. These are formed when thousands of stars are born within a short time in a huge gas cloud. As they "ignite," the galactic newcomers blow away the remnants...

When a massive star collapsed in the Cassiopeia constellation, it generated a supernova explosion with some of the fastest shockwaves in the Milky Way. These speedy shock waves are one of the reasons the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova remnant was chosen to be our Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer’s (IXPE) first observed object. This composite image, made of data from IXPE, the Chandra Observatory, and the Hubble Telescope, shows Cas A. IXPE’s investigation of Cas A from Jan. 11 to Jan. 29, 2022, added crucial information about the behavior of exploded stars’ magnetic fields: scientists found that the magnetic fields...

Over the past several weeks, NASA's ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed humankind some unprecedented glimpses into the farthest reaches of our universe. And unsurprisingly, some of these dazzling new observations have raised more questions than they've answered.For a long time, for instance, scientists believed the universe's earliest, oldest galaxies to be small, slightly chaotic, and misshapen systems. But according to the Washington Post, JWST-captured imagery has revealed those galaxies to be shockingly massive, not to mention balanced and well-formed — a finding that challenges, and will likely rewrite, long-held understandings about the origins of our universe. "The...

To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising—not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what...

spiral galaxies and distant galaxies are visible against the black void of space A small portion of deep space observed by JWST. NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley/Z. Levay Astronomers armed with early data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are hunting galaxies that existed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Rohan Naidu, an astrophysicist based at Harvard's and Smithsonian's jointly operated Center for Astrophysics, and his colleagues have been particularly good at uncovering these cosmic relics. Just a few days after the JWST's first images were beamed across the planet in July, Naidu and his collaborators...

The researchers discovered that a new theoretical framework to unify Hermitian and non-Hermitian physics is established by the duality between non-Hermiticity and curved spaces. A physics puzzle is resolved through a new duality. According to traditional thinking, distorting a flat space by bending it or stretching it is necessary to create a curved space. A group of scientists at Purdue University has developed a new technique for making curved spaces that also provides the answer to a physics mystery. The team has developed a method using non-Hermiticity, which occurs in all systems coupled to environments, to build a hyperbolic surface...