Astrophysics

The universe likes to play coy about its age, but we have a pretty good idea of the range. Now, a series of new studies has investigated the question using different methods, and have reached different answers, separated by more than a billion years.

A 20-year study of the sky has allowed astronomers to produce a comprehensive 3D map of the universe. A new analysis of this map has highlighted a mismatch in the Hubble Constant, and revealed when the expansion of the universe began to accelerate.

Could there be a tiny black hole hiding in our own backyard? It’s been suggested that the hypothetical Planet Nine is actually a black hole, and now astronomers have proposed how we might find it in the next few years, using an upcoming telescope.

The LIGO-Virgo collaboration has reported a very strange gravitational wave signal. This signal appears to have come from a black hole swallowing some unknown object, with a mass that sits in a range thought to be empty.

Given how big the universe is, chances are tiny that Earth is the only planet with life. But how would we find others? A new NASA grant has been awarded to try and do so by hunting for signs of advanced alien civilizations, or "technosignatures."

There’s invisible, undetectable stuff all around us, and we call it dark matter. There’s plenty of evidence that this stuff is very real, but what exactly is dark matter? How do we know it’s there? And how are scientists looking for it?

Equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang, but this would just have annihilated itself. Now, physicists have proposed a new theory that explains the mystery – and outlined how we can find direct evidence of it.

Even 100 years after the theory of general relativity, new observations keep confirming its predictions. Now, Australian astronomers have found that high-density stars in close orbit appear to be dragging and twisting the fabric of spacetime itself.

Astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and at the University Observatory Munich have found the largest black hole using direct mass measurements so far. It has a mass 40 billion times that of the Sun.

For the first time, atmospheric chemistry and 3D climate modeling have been combined in a way that could help identify planets beyond our solar system which could host life.

Scientists generally agree that the universe is expanding, but how fast is up for debate. Now, astrophysicists have come up with a new figure for the Hubble Constant by studying how gamma rays interact with the background radiation of the universe.

The Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan will join LIGO in the US and Virgo in Italy to triangulate where any waves are coming from.