Physics + Astronomy

02/04/2025

Scientists were stunned when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

02/03/2025

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a new feature in the universe—not a flaw in telescope measurements—may be behind the decade-long mystery of why the universe is expanding faster today than it did in its infancy billions of years ago.

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a new feature in the universe—not a flaw in telescope measurements—may be behind the decade-long mystery of why the universe is expanding faster today than it did in its infancy billions of years ago. The new data confirms Hubble ...

02/02/2025

A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles.

It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years.

A 'city-killer' asteroid has a 1-in-77 chance of smashing into Earth in 2032, raising concerns about potential impacts on our planet.

02/01/2025

Breaking 🚨: For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that’s massless when moving one direction but has mass in the other direction.

For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that's massless when moving one direction but has mass

02/01/2025

A new study by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, utilizing observations from 2017 and 2018, has significantly advanced our understanding of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy (M87*). This research marks a crucial step towards comprehensive, multi-year analyses at horizon scales, enabling a deeper investigation of the black hole’s turbulent accretion flow.

A new study by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, utilizing observations from 2017 and 2018, has significantly advanced our understanding of the

01/31/2025

A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study.

A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study. The findings could lead to the development of new magnetic memory devices with the potential to increase operation speeds of up to a thousand times.

01/31/2025

Saturn as seen through a high end telescope. I like the view 🪐

📸: Dan Borja

01/31/2025

Across cosmic history, powerful forces have acted on matter, reshaping the universe into an increasingly complex web of structures.

Researchers combined cosmological data from two major surveys of the universe’s evolutionary history and found that it may have become ‘messier and complicated’ than expected in recent years.

01/30/2025

2024 YR4 is currently at the top of NASA’s Sentry Risk Table of asteroid threats

A 'city-killer' asteroid has a 1-in-77 chance of smashing into Earth in 2032, raising concerns about potential impacts on our planet.

01/30/2025

Researchers have found the slowest cosmic lighthouse yet – one that spins once every 6.5 hours. This discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, pushes the boundaries of what we thought possible.

When some of the biggest stars end their lives, they explode in supernovas, leaving behind dense cores known as magnetars, a slow-spinning mystery.

01/29/2025

Physicists have proposed modifications to the infamous Schrödinger's cat paradox that could help explain why quantum particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously, while large objects (like the universe) seemingly cannot.

01/29/2025

Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it—an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.

Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea—it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.

Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that "negative time" isn't just a

01/29/2025

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) – also called 'artificial sun' – has achieved the milestone of 1,006 seconds of operations for sustained plasma temperature above 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius).

China's "artificial sun," officially known as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), has achieved a groundbreaking milestone in fusion

01/28/2025

Scientists theoretically demonstrate particles other than bosons and fermions...

New research by physicists shows the possibility of particles that are neither bosons nor fermions. Their study, published in Nature, mathematically demonstrates the potential existence of paraparticles that have long been thought impossible.

Theorists propose a groundbreaking new class of quantum particles, expanding our understanding of the quantum world and its implications.

01/27/2025

Entanglement is perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of quantum mechanics

Entanglement is perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of quantum mechanics. On its surface, entanglement allows particles to communicate over vast distances instantly, apparently violating the speed of light. But while entangled particles are connected, they don't necessarily share information b...

01/26/2025

In a major study conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the CMS collaboration has explored whether top quarks – nature’s heaviest elementary particles – adhere to Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

The CMS team analysed data from the second operational run of the LHC, searching for any signs of such time-dependent variations. Their results confirmed a

01/25/2025

An international team of researchers have demonstrated, in a world’s first, an ideal Weyl semimetal, marking a breakthrough in a decade-old problem of quantum materials.

An international team of researchers led by the Strong Correlation Quantum Transport Laboratory of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) has demonstrated, in a world's first, an ideal Weyl semimetal, marking a breakthrough in a decade-old problem of quantum materials.

01/25/2025

A team of scientists has succeeded for the first time in trapping molecules to perform quantum operations. This feat was accomplished by using ultra-cold polar molecules as qubits, or the fundamental units of information that power the technology. The findings, recently published in the journal Nature, open new realms of possibility for harnessing the complexity of molecular structures for future applications.

Molecules haven't been used in quantum computing, even though they have the potential to make the ultra-high-speed experimental technology even faster. Their