Physics
Warm Coronal Loops May Hold the Key to Hot Solar Atmosphere
Coronal loops, the elegant and bright structures threading through the solar surface and into the solar atmosphere, are key to…
Temperature Conditions of a Supernova Recreated in UK Laboratory
Scientists are one step closer to attaining the ultimate goal: producing temperatures high enough to sustain fusion, the reaction that…
Stars Orbiting Close to Black Holes Flattened like Hot Pancakes
Playing with black holes is a risky business, especially for a star that is unlucky enough to be orbiting one.…
Digging for Dark Matter: The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Detector
How do you catch a WIMP? No, I'm not talking about bullying the weakest kid in class, I'm talking about…
Solar Sail Space Travel One Step Closer to Reality
Solar sails were once thought to belong in the realms of science fiction. Huge canopies of lightweight tin foil catching…
Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the Earth?
Question: Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the Earth? Answer: No. As you might have heard in the news recently,…
X-Ray Flare Echo Reveals Supermassive Black Hole Torus
The light echo of an X-ray flare from the nucleus of a galaxy has been observed. The flare almost certainly…
Inflation Theory Takes a Little Kick in the Pants
Inflation theory proposes that the universe underwent a period of exponential expansion right after the Big Bang. One of the…
The Pioneer Anomaly: A Deviation from Einstein Gravity?
Both Pioneer probes are approximately 240,000 miles (386,000 km) closer to the Sun than predicted by calculation. Scientists have been…
What was Before the Big Bang? An Identical, Reversed Universe
So what did exist before the Big Bang? This question would normally belong in the realms of deep philosophical thinking;…