Astrophysics

The first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere has been officially opened. The Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) is built in a disused gold mine in Australia, giving it a unique position on the globe for detecting dark matter.

Everything has to end eventually – including the universe itself. It might be hard to imagine a catastrophe big enough to affect the entirety of existence, but here are some of the leading hypotheses about how the universe could end, and when.

NASA has released a huge new report that astronomers are calling Hubble’s magnum opus. Analyzing 30 years of data from the famous space telescope, the new study makes the most precise measurement yet of how fast the universe is expanding.

Astronomers have discovered the most distant object ever seen – a strange galaxy some 13.5 billion light-years away. Named HD1, the galaxy may house a never-before-seen population of stars, or a supermassive black hole mysteriously ahead of its time.

Astronomers have discovered the closest known pair of supermassive black holes – and that record has two meanings. Not only are they the closest pair to Earth, but they’re the closest to each other as well, heading for an eventual monster merger.

How did the universe end up with exactly the amount of dark matter needed? A new model suggests dark matter particles in the early universe converted regular matter into dark matter exponentially, before being slowed by the expansion of the universe.

Astronomers have proposed a novel solution to one of the many mysteries of black holes – why do so many seem to be more massive than expected? A new model suggests that their growth may be “cosmologically coupled” to the expansion of the universe.

Astronomers have discovered a big hole in space. New 3D visualizations of the Perseus and Taurus star-forming clouds have revealed a large cavity between them, possibly created in ancient supernova explosions.

A new type of gravitational wave detector has recorded two rare events that may be signals of dark matter or primordial black holes. These high-frequency gravitational waves are beyond the range of most detectors and have never been recorded before.

Physicists have outlined a relatively simple new way to create antimatter, by firing two lasers at each other to reproduce the conditions near a neutron star, converting light into matter and antimatter. Doing so could unlock cosmological mysteries.

It’s tricky detecting gravitational waves – these spacetime ripples are often drowned out by background vibrations from earthquakes and human activity. Now a pair of astrophysicists has proposed a new location that would be far quieter – the Moon.

By studying the logs of computer malfunctions caused by high-energy particles striking their circuitry, ESA scientists have used "housekeeping" data from the Rosetta and Mars Express deep-space probes to shed new light on cosmic rays in the solar system.