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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...

When Isaac Newton inscribed onto parchment his now-famed laws of motion in 1687, he could have only hoped we'd be discussing them three centuries later. Writing in Latin, Newton outlined three universal principles describing how the motion of objects is governed in our Universe, which have been translated, transcribed, discussed and debated at length. But according to a philosopher of language and mathematics, we might have been interpreting Newton's precise wording of his first law of motion slightly wrong all along. Virginia Tech philosopher Daniel Hoek wanted to "set the record straight" after discovering what he describes as a "clumsy...

A record-breaking neutrino detected in the Mediterranean may hold the key to understanding the most extreme events in the universe. Could it be from a cosmic accelerator — or something even more mysterious? Credit: Patrick Dumas (CNRS) ================================================================================ A neutrino of record-breaking energy — 220 PeV — has been detected by the underwater KM3NeT telescope, marking a pivotal moment in astrophysics. This tiny but powerful particle, born from the universe’s most extreme events, provides fresh clues about cosmic accelerators. While its exact origin remains unknown, scientists believe it could be the first detected cosmogenic neutrino. The discovery fuels new momentum...

A close-up view of the center of the NGC 6505 galaxy, with the bright Einstein ring around its nucleus, captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. The Einstein ring is formed by gravitational lensing, with the mass of galaxy NGC 6505 bending and magnifying the light from a more distant galaxy into a ring. NGC 6505 is a well-known galaxy only around 590 million light-years from Earth, and Euclid’s discovery of a spectacular Einstein ring here was unexpected. (Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, T. Li) MUNICH — When the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope launched on July...

Unless young students learn the predicate mathematics for calculus, our nation will grind to a halt. While Democrats focus on the liberal arts, which train students to be leftist activists beginning in grade school, it is the STEM studies that keep America functioning. As students ascend that ladder of mathematical logic, calculus becomes central to their ability to maintain our systems and invent new ones. Sadly, though, our schools are failing students, not just in teaching calculus but in teaching everything preceding calculus. It is widely recognized among today’s undergraduates that the STEM field is at once among the most...

· Scientists used a 5,564-qubit quantum computer to simulate and observe "false vacuum decay" — a process that could determine our Universe's ultimate fate by transitioning it to a more stable state· The research team created and tracked quantum bubbles containing up to 306 qubits, revealing how smaller bubbles bounce around among larger ones in a complex quantum dance that persisted for over 1,000 qubit time units· This breakthrough demonstrates how table-top quantum experiments can help us understand fundamental cosmic processes without requiring massive facilities like the Large Hadron ColliderNearly 50 years ago, physicist Sidney Coleman proposed an intriguing idea:...

For decades, fusion researchers struggled with neutron isotropy, a key indicator of scalable plasma stability. Zap Energy’s latest results show its FuZE device avoids the pitfalls of past Z pinch failures, generating isotropic neutrons that confirm thermal fusion is occurring. A Major Milestone for Zap’s Fusion Technology In physics, “isotropy” refers to a system where properties remain the same in all directions. In fusion research, neutron energy isotropy is a key measurement that assesses how evenly neutrons are emitted from a device. This uniformity is crucial — when fusion plasmas are isotropic, they indicate a stable, thermal plasma that can...

Scientists recently reported an unexpected deep-sea development in the Pacific: certain metallic rocks seem to be making oxygen in the dark, without light or sunshine, at the bottom of the ocean. This idea runs counter to the usual belief that oxygen only forms in sunlight through photosynthesis. Although these findings have stirred debate, the central claim is that potato-sized nodules found thousands of feet below the surface appear to split seawater molecules and release oxygen. Oxygen and photosynthesis – the basics Since the late 1700s, we’ve been taught that light creates oxygen through photosynthesis, a crucial natural process that keeps...

"Our measurements imply that the supermassive black hole mass is 10% of the stellar mass in the galaxies we studied." Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered distant, overly massive supermassive black holes in the early universe. The black holes seem way too massive compared to the mass of the stars in the galaxies that host them. In the modern universe, for galaxies close to our own Milky Way, supermassive black holes tend to have masses equal to around 0.01% of the stellar mass of their host galaxy. Thus, for every 10,000 solar masses attributed to stars...

Altermagnetism was first theorized in 2019 and experimentally confirmed in 2024 by researchers at Mainz University. It bridges the gap between traditional magnetic classifications, offering practical applications in advanced data storage systems. Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2024 Science and research continuously deliver groundbreaking discoveries, expanding the boundaries of what we know. Each year, the renowned journal Science highlights ten of these achievements in its list of top scientific breakthroughs. For 2024, the journal named the drug lenacapavir — hailed for its potential to reduce HIV/AIDS infections to zero — as the Breakthrough of the Year. In the realm of physics,...

In a nutshell: * Astronomers studying the nearby Coma galaxy cluster have found new evidence that the universe is expanding about 9% faster than predicted by our current physics models – a discrepancy known as the Hubble tension. This finding strengthens concerns that our fundamental understanding of cosmic evolution may need revision. * The research team measured precise distances to 13 supernovae within the Coma cluster, determining it lies about 98.5 million light-years from Earth – significantly closer than the 111.8 million light-years predicted by models based on observations of the early universe. This difference is too large to be...

A groundbreaking reanalysis of the M87 galaxy’s supermassive black hole, M87*, unveils intriguing new insights into the structure and behavior of its plasma environment. Credit: EHT collaboration First Step on the Way to a Video of the Black Hole In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration made history by releasing the first-ever image of a black hole—M87*, located at the center of the galaxy M87. This groundbreaking image was based on data collected in 2017. Now, the EHT team has analyzed additional data from their 2018 observations, revealing new findings. The latest analysis shows that the brightest part of...

Astronomers have, for the first time, watched the moment a feeding supermassive black hole at the heart of a distant galaxy spat out a jet of material at one-third of the speed of light. Plus, the structure is technically made up of two jets, each about half a light-year across. The black hole in question, which has a mass around 1.4 billion times that of the sun, is located at the heart of a galaxy designated 1ES 1927+654. It's located about 270 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. "The launch of a black hole jet has never been observed...

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a steady, highly confined loop of plasma — the high-energy fourth state of matter — for 1,066 seconds on Monday (Jan. 20), which more than doubled its previous best of 403 seconds, Chinese state media reported. Nuclear fusion reactors are nicknamed "artificial suns" because they generate energy in a similar way to the sun

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak achieved a remarkable scientific milestone by maintaining steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for an impressive 1,066 seconds. Credit: HFIPS China’s EAST project has set a new global record by maintaining a high-confinement plasma state for over 17 minutes, paving the way for future clean energy solutions by mimicking the sun’s fusion process. China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), also known as the “artificial sun,” has set a new world record by sustaining high-confinement plasma for an impressive 1,066 seconds. This achievement, reached on January 20, marks a major step forward in the quest to develop fusion...

The Hubble tension grows: new data shows the Universe’s expansion defies current physics models, suggesting our understanding of cosmology may need a major overhaul. Credit: SciTechDaily.com New research confirms the Universe is expanding faster than theoretical models predict, intensifying the Hubble tension. Using precise measurements of the Coma cluster, scientists recalibrated the cosmic distance ladder, suggesting flaws in existing cosmological models. Expanding Universe: A Startling Discovery The Universe appears to be expanding faster than expected — faster than theoretical models predict and beyond what our current understanding of physics can explain. New measurements have confirmed earlier, highly debated results showing...

Observations suggest that galaxies are moving apart at a higher rate than scientists have long expected. Many now wonder if the standard model of cosmology can fully explain what’s going on. Dan Scolnic is an associate professor of physics at Duke University. He and his team led a new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, that strengthens the case for a mismatch between data and predictions. Century of tracking

Time travel has long captured the human imagination, from its appearances in science fiction fantasies to its profound implications in modern theoretical physics. Now, a recent study by Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino, a theoretical and mathematical physicist at Vanderbilt University, delves into the enigmatic nature of time travel involving time loops to examine their profound implications for quantum mechanics, entropy, and human experience. Dr. Gavassino’s findings, published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, present a strikingly different picture of time travel. They reveal that traveling through such time loops would prevent many classical time travel paradoxes, including the infamous “grandfather paradox.” “It...

Rice University physicists have mathematically unveiled the possibility of paraparticles, which defy the traditional binary classification of particles into bosons and fermions. Their research, which delves into the realms of abstract algebra and condensed matter, hints at groundbreaking applications in quantum computing and information systems, suggesting an exciting, albeit speculative, future for new material properties and particle behavior. Breaking Conventional Particle Categories Since the early days of quantum mechanics, scientists have believed that all particles fall into one of two categories — bosons or fermions — defined by their distinct behaviors. However, recent research by Rice University physicist Kaden Hazzard...

Chinese researchers say that recent advancements in the burgeoning field of inertial confinement fusion are bringing us one step closer to making accessible nuclear fusion a reality. The new findings, which incorporate innovative new modeling approaches, could open new avenues for the exploration of the mysteries surrounding high-energy-density physics, and could potentially offer a window toward understanding the physics of the early universe. Harnessing controlled nuclear fusion as a potential source of clean energy has seen several significant advancements in recent years, and the recent research by a Chinese team, funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy...