New Atlas

Physics Audio available

"Snowball chamber" would detect dark matter using supercooled water

Michael Irving April 15, 2019

Although dark matter makes up roughly 85 percent of all matter, it’s still never been directly detected. Now researchers from the State University of New York at Albany have developed a new dark matter detector using supercooled water.

Supercooled water could be used as a new type of dark matter detector

Space Audio available

New galaxy discovered that's light on dark matter

Michael Irving April 1, 2019

In a pair of studies published this week, astronomers have shed new light on dark matter through close observation of a galaxy previously found to have very little of the stuff, while the same team found a new example of a similar oddball galaxy.

The galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 has been found to have very little dark matter

Physics Audio available

Missing in axion: Dark matter experiment rules out more candidate particles

Michael Irving March 31, 2019

Physicists have been hunting for dark matter for decades. Hypothetical particles called axions are a long-standing candidate, but a new experiment has now found that they don’t exist – at least within a certain mass range.

A new experiment has narrowed the search for dark matter particles, by eliminating a candidate known ...

Space Audio available

Astronomers calculate the mass of the entire Milky Way galaxy

Michael Irving March 7, 2019

How heavy is the Milky Way galaxy? A team of astronomers has used data from Hubble and the Gaia satellite to make the most accurate measurement of the mass of the galaxy by studying the motions of star clusters orbiting the Milky Way.

Astronomers have measured the mass of the Milky Way by studying the movements of orbiting clusters ...

Physics

Dark matter and dark energy may really be one "dark fluid" with negative mass

Michael Irving December 5, 2018

An astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a “dark fluid” with negative mass that fills the universe.

A new theory suggests that the universe is filled with a dark fluid that has negative ...

Space Audio available

Gigantic "ghost" galaxy spotted circling the Milky Way

Michael Irving November 13, 2018

Astronomers have spotted a mysterious “ghost” galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. Huge but extremely faint, the oddball galaxy has been named Antlia 2, and it might just be weird enough to force us to rethink what we know about galactic physics and dark matter.

The new galaxy, named Antlia 2 (right) is extremely faint compared to the Milky Way (middle) ...

Physics

X-rays from deep space help track down the universe's missing matter

Michael Irving June 21, 2018

Ordinary (or baryonic) matter is relatively rare in the universe, and there seems to be a huge chunk of it missing. After 20 years of scouring the sky, astronomers using the ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory have now found clues to this missing matter hiding in intergalactic gas.

Astronomers have found evidence of the universe's "missing matter" lurking in intergalactic gas between filaments of ...

Physics

Huge underground xenon experiment zeroes in on dark matter

Michael Irving May 30, 2018

It’s no easy feat to find dark matter, since it's invisible and barely interacts with regular matter. Now the results are in from one of the most comprehensive dark matter experiments ever run, and while the stuff was again a no-show, the study helps scientists zero in on where it might be hiding.

The XENON1T facility, on the left is the water tank containing the instrument itself, with a ...

Space

Astronomers find galaxy with no dark matter – and why that really matters

Michael Irving March 28, 2018

Now there’s a new wrinkle to the story of dark matter, as scientists at Yale University have for the first time discovered a galaxy that appears to have no dark matter at all. Ironically, the find may just turn out to be the exception that proves the rule.

A snap of the galaxy NGC1052–DF2, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope

Science

The most read New Atlas stories of 2017

New Atlas Team December 28, 2017

Here at New Atlas we cover a wide variety of topics, so it's always interesting to arrive at the end of another year and see what most struck a chord with readers over the past 12 months. Read on to see what captured the imagination of you, our readers, in 2017.

A piece on a 3D metal printing system that's much faster, safer and cheaper than existing ...