Physics

Astronomers are a step closer to solving a cosmic mystery, thanks to new Hubble data. Observations show a dwarf galaxy previously found to be missing most of its dark matter is being stripped and slowly torn apart by a larger nearby galaxy.

Superconductors – materials in which electricity flows without any resistance whatsoever – could be extremely useful. For the first time ever, engineers have created a superconductor out of a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

Antimatter is a tricky substance to store and transport, mostly because it annihilates any container you try to put it in. Now CERN researchers have outlined a new antimatter trap designed to safely carry the volatile stuff to new facilities.

Scientists have so far been unable to detect dark matter. But a new detector design, using an array of billions of tiny pendulums, could finally break the silence by searching for the effects of dark matter’s incredibly strong gravitational pull.

Physicists in Germany have measured the shortest timespan ever recorded. The team measured the time it takes for a photon of light to travel the length of a hydrogen molecule, and found it to occur in just trillionths of a billionth of a second.

When we talk about the speed of sound, we usually mean how fast it moves through air. But it can travel much faster through other media, and now scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified the absolute top speed of sound.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Roger Penrose for his proof that black holes result from general relativity, and jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for discovering the supermassive monster at the center of the Milky Way.

Scientists have estimated the total amount of matter in the universe using a more precise method. By calculating the mass of hundreds of galaxy clusters, the team found that matter makes up around a third of the contents of the universe.

In recent years astronomers made the puzzling discovery of two bizarre galaxies with almost no dark matter, which should dominate them. Now, a new study has suggested an explanation for that mystery – a larger nearby galaxy is stripping it away.

Exactly why and how the expansion of the universe is accelerating remains unknown. One hypothesis blames strange black-hole-like objects made of dark energy, and now astrophysicists have theorized how these objects work and where they all went.

The LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaboration has detected gravitational waves coming from the most massive black hole collision that it's ever recorded. The end result created a gargantuan black hole that belongs to a new class.

The Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Japan has received an upgrade. A rare-earth element called gadolinium has been added to the water in the facility, which will make it more sensitive to neutrinos from more distant and ancient supernovae.