Subterms
Meet Perseverance, NASA’s next ambassador to the Red Planet. The Mars rover’s new name was announced March 5, after a six-month “Name the Rover” competition that drew more than 28,000 entries from students in kindergarten through high school. Students were asked to make their name suggestions in essays. The winning entry came from 7th grader […] More
Two sets of cosmic discoveries have garnered the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics. Half of the prize of 9 million Swedish kronor (about $900,000) goes to James Peebles of Princeton University, who discovered new theoretical tools to study the universe. His research includes studies of the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, light emitted early in […] More
The Number of the HeavensTom SiegfriedHarvard Univ., $29.95 There is no bigger question than whether the universe is all there is. Scientists are juggling several ideas for what a multiverse, if one exists, might be like. Our universe could be one bubble in a vast cosmic fizz. Or one of many 3-D domains stacked, like […] More
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The word “crisis” hung in the air from the very beginning of the meeting. In a room just steps from the ocean in Santa Barbara, astronomers and physicists shifted restlessly in their chairs. Sunshine and sea breezes beckoned, but the scientists had cloistered themselves to debate one of the biggest quandaries […] More
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — It’s one of the most talked-about issues in physics: Two measurements of the universe’s expansion rate disagree. Now, a technique that aimed to resolve the mismatch has produced a third estimate that falls between the previous two. So the controversy endures, scientists report in a study accepted in the Astrophysical Journal. […] More
A geophysicist looks at the science, history and culture of the versatile element ALL ABOUT CARBON Diamond, graphite and calcite (crystals shown) are just three of the hundreds of carbon-bearing minerals found on Earth. Rob Lavinsky and iRocks.com/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Share this: This article is only available to Science News subscribers. Subscribers, enter […] More
The finding suggests large structures in the cosmic web are magnetized MAGNETIC CONNECTION Two distant galaxy clusters, Abell 0399 (left) and Abell 0401 (right), are connected by magnetic fields containing high-energy electrons. X-rays from the cluster cores are shown in purple, and radio emission from the magnetic bridge forms the blue-toned smear in between. DSS, […] More
Subatomic particles born in the universe’s first second may imprint their effects on the sky RUN IN CIRCLES Galaxies in the universe tend to cluster into rings (illustrated), and scientists have found signs that subatomic particles called neutrinos change the way matter is distributed in the circles. Zosia Rostomian/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Share this: This […] More
