New Atlas

Physics Audio available

Dark matter detector reveals material with longest half-life ever – 18 sextillion years

Michael Irving April 28, 2019

Although the many experiments searching for evidence of dark matter have yet to turn up any solid proof yet, they are making other amazing discoveries. The XENON1T experiment has now revealed the longest half-life ever seen in an element, which is far, far longer than the age of the universe.

The XENON1T experiment may not have found dark matter, but it has now revealed the element ...

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 ...

Physics

Physicists measure quantum tunneling time to be near-instantaneous

Michael Irving March 18, 2019

If you throw a particle at a wall, there’s a chance that it will suddenly appear on the other side. This is thanks to a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling, and now a team of physicists has measured just how long that process takes.

Physicists have measured how long it takes particles to quantum tunnel through barriers, and found it ...

Physics Audio available

CERN's proposed 100-km particle accelerator would run rings around the LHC

Darren Quick January 15, 2019

CERN, the European research organization responsible for operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has released a report outlining a proposed particle accelerator that would be nearly four times as long and 10 times as powerful as its predecessor.

The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would have a circumference of 100 km (62 mi), dwarfing ...

Physics Audio available

Large Hadron Collider upgrades to pave the way for higher energy collisions

Nick Lavars December 4, 2018

Scientists at CERN have switched off the Large Hadron Collider following its second round of experiments, gearing it up for a third run that will see particles smashed together harder than ever before.

The Large Hadron Collider undergoes some earlier upgrades

Physics

Large Hadron Collider: 10 years of pushing the frontiers of physics

Michael Irving September 15, 2018

The Large Hadron Collider has been responsible for some of the most important breakthroughs in scientific history, most notably the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2013. New Atlas is celebrating the 10-year anniversary with a look back at its achievements and what it could help solve in the future.

The Large Hadron Collider turned 10 this week

Physics

Fastest-spinning manmade object clocks 60 billion rpm

Michael Irving July 22, 2018

The fastest-spinning manmade object has been created in a lab at Purdue University. This microscopic rotor is made up of two silica nanoparticles stuck together to form a "dumbbell," and by hitting it with laser light the team has sent it spinning at a blistering 60 billion rpm.

Using a high-powered laser, researchers at Purdue University have set a microscopic "dumbbell" spinning at 60 ...

Space

Fermi Telescope locates extragalactic source of "ghost particles"

Michael Irving July 12, 2018

About 3.7 billion years ago, a neutrino was thrown out of a blazar and launched towards Earth. The ghostly particle was detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and traced back to its point of origin, helping to confirm the most distant neutrino source ever identified.

A distant blazar has been identified as a source of neutrinos detected in Antarctica

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 ...

Physics

"CUORE" experiment seeks to get to the heart of the matter – and antimatter

Dario Borghino March 31, 2018

A five-year experiment is underway in central Italy to determine whether the decay of heavy neutrinos shortly after the Big Bang can explain why the universe is composed mostly of matter and very little antimatter.

Bottom view of the 19 CUORE towers installed in the cryostat designed to help explain why ...