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The entire universe may be rotating—just like its individual components, from massive galaxies to solar systems and planets—a possibility that could help explain the long-standing “Hubble tension” that has puzzled scientists for years. None of the currently accepted models of the universe account for any overall spin. Instead, they describe it as expanding uniformly in all directions. However, these models run into trouble with the so-called Hubble tension, a discrepancy where different methods of measuring the universe’s expansion yield conflicting results. “To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who famously said ‘Panta Rhei’—everything moves—we thought that perhaps Panta Kykloutai—everything...

This artist’s impression illustrates the mechanism that could be at the origin of the powerful bursts of X-ray light seen from a newly awakened black hole named Ansky. Credit: ESA A mysterious black hole in a distant galaxy just woke up after decades of silence—and it’s putting on a cosmic light show! **************************************************************************** ESA’s XMM-Newton and other X-ray telescopes are capturing massive bursts of energy known as quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs) that defy current theories. Unlike anything seen before, these powerful flashes may be rewriting the rulebook on how black holes behave, evolve, and interact with their surroundings. XMM-Newton Observes Rare...

Some of the objects captured by ASKAP. (Author provided) ******************************************************************************* Radio astronomers see what the naked eye can’t. As we study the sky with telescopes that record radio signals rather than light, we end up seeing a lot of circles. The newest generation of radio telescopes – including the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT, a telescope in South Africa – is revealing incredibly faint cosmic objects, never before seen. In astronomy, surface brightness is a measure that tells us how easily visible an object is. The extraordinary sensitivity of MeerKAT and ASKAP is now revealing a new...

Artist’s impression of the bright, very early active galactic nucleus that was found by Bañados and his colleagues, which has fundamental implications for black hole growth in the earliest billion or so years of cosmic history. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/B. Saxton ======================================================================================= Astronomers have spotted a young, blazing black hole that was already growing at a furious pace just one billion years after the Big Bang. This rare discovery provides a key to understanding how supermassive black holes formed in the universe’s earliest days. Astronomers have identified a crucial clue in understanding how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the...

The James Webb Space Telescope has found evidence of large, bright galaxies in the early universe, challenging traditional dark matter theories and suggesting a rapid galactic formation as predicted by MOND. Credit: SciTechDaily.com New findings from the James Webb Space Telescope contradict traditional theories about early galaxy formation, revealing large and bright galaxies instead of the expected small, dim structures. This observation supports the Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory, which disputes the role of dark matter and suggests a rapid formation of galaxies in the early universe, presenting a challenge to the widely accepted dark matter hypothesis. Challenging Conventional Galaxy...

The James Webb Space Telescope (Credit: NASA) The James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed controversial Hubble Telescope measurements that seemingly contradict the standard model of cosmology, giving rise to what is known as the ‘Hubble Tension,’ according to new findings involving the most extensive study of the universe’s expansion ever conducted. Confirmation of the decades-long Hubble Tension, which reveals that the universe is expanding faster than cosmological models predict, has sent astrophysicists back to the drawing board in search of previously unknown physics that could account for the measurements, potentially rewriting the standard model. “The discrepancy between the observed expansion...

credit: NASA/CSA/ESA, M. Xiao & P. A. Oesch (University of Geneva), G. Brammer (Niels Bohr Institute), Dawn JWST Archive Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered three massive galaxies from the early universe, revealing them to be as massive as the Milky Way and forming stars with surprising efficiency. This finding, which contradicts earlier models of slow stellar formation, suggests that star formation in the early universe was much more productive than previously believed. Three Galactic “Red Monsters” Discovered in the Early Universe An international research team, led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE), has discovered three ultra-massive...

This image, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shows an ancient quasar (circled in red) with fewer than expected neighboring galaxies (bright blobs), challenging physicists’ understanding of how the first quasars and supermassive black holes formed. Credit: Christina Eilers/EIGER team ===================================================================================== Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to detect ancient lonely quasars with murky origins. They appear to have few cosmic neighbors, raising questions about how they first emerged more than 13 billion years ago. A quasar is an incredibly bright region at the center of a galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole. As this black hole...

A recent study led by a Kansas State University engineer has provided evidence that supports the "Tired Light" theory, a century-old concept that challenges the widely accepted Big Bang theory. ... Shamir's findings align with the long-standing "Tired Light" theory, originally proposed in the 1920s. "In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble and George Lemaitre discovered that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to move away from Earth," Shamir explained. "That discovery led to the Big Bang theory, which suggests that the universe began expanding approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Around the same time, astronomer Fritz Zwicky proposed...

(ESO/M. Kornmesser) Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided astronomers with unprecedented new insights into the early universe, thanks to detailed imagery of the quasar PJ308–21 recently obtained by NASA’s premier space observatory. The new imagery reveals the appearance of this celestial object as it would have looked when the universe was less than a billion years old, offering a detailed view of the quasar’s spectrum and host galaxy. Obtained with Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, the new imagery of quasar PJ308–21 reveals its spectrum with an uncertainty of less than 1% per pixel despite the object’s incredible...

Using the Subaru Telescope and Gemini North telescope, an international team of astronomers including Kavli IPMU (WPI) has found the earliest pair of quasars, monsters shining with intense radiation powered by actively feeding super massive black holes. Figure 1: Twin super massive black holes, HSC J121503.42−014858.7 (C1) and HSC J121503.55−014859.3 (C2), discovered by the Subaru Telescope in the Universe 12.9 billion light-years away. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab) & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20240618-TwinQuasars Using the Subaru Telescope and Gemini North telescope, both located on Maunakea in Hawai`i, an international team of...

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.)...