Latest Universe Stories
An annual report released by the Space Foundation shows that global space revenues saw an increase of 2.5 percent to $257 billion in 2008.The report found that the industry is still experiencing steady growth even in the midst of a recession.Commercial satellite services and commercial infrastructure made up 67 percent of revenue, compared to 32 percent from government space spending."Space activity has integrated itself so thoroughly into broader business activity, with an array of...
During the next decade, a delicate measurement of primordial light could reveal convincing evidence for the popular cosmic inflation theory, which proposes that a random, microscopic density fluctuation in the fabric of space and time gave birth to the universe in a hot big bang approximately 13.7 billion years ago.Among the cosmologists searching for these weak signals will be John Carlstrom, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the...
Israeli scientists have proposed a new theory of how galaxies were formed in the universe billions of years ago. The theory, formulated by Hebrew University of Jerusalem cosmologists led by Professor Avishai Dekel, takes issue with the prevailing view on how galaxies came to exist. The new theory -- based on advanced astronomical observations and computer simulations -- maintains galaxies primarily formed as a result of intensive cosmic streams of cold gas and not, as current theory...
Book addresses evolution and cosmic reincarnation, biblical literature in light of modern scholarship, social and economic issues SPRING HILL, Fla., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- This new book is destined to inspire profound thought among scientists and laymen alike. A truly revolutionary work, "Revelations" is centered upon such fundamental issues as evolution and reincarnation - with emphasis upon the purpose behind creation - and should interest many readers. Of headline importance, this book...
Earth's location in the Universe is utterly unremarkable, despite recent theories that propose toppling a foundation of modern cosmology, according to a team of University of British Columbia researchers.Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus's 1543 book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, moved Earth from being the centre of the Universe to just another planet orbiting the Sun. Since then, astronomers have extended the idea and formed the Copernican Principle, which says that our...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. By tracking how dark energy has stifled the growth of galaxy clusters and combining this with previous studies, scientists have obtained the best clues yet about what dark energy is and what the destiny of the universe could be. (Logo:...
The Big Bang is widely considered to have obliterated any trace of what came before. Now, astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) think that their new theoretical interpretation of an imprint from the earliest stages of the universe may also shed light on what came before."It's no longer completely crazy to ask what happened before the Big Bang," comments Marc Kamionkowski, Caltech's Robinson Professor of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics. Kamionkowski...
For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. By tracking how dark energy has stifled the growth of galaxy clusters and combining this with previous studies, scientists have obtained the best clues yet about what dark energy is and what the destiny of the universe could be.This work, which took years to complete, is separate from other methods of dark energy...
Although we may believe humans know a lot about the Universe, there are still a lot of phenomena to be explained. A team of cosmologists from the University of the Basque Country are searching for the model that best explains the evolution of the Universe.We usually have an image of scientists who study the Universe doing so peering through a telescope. And, effectively, this is what astrophysicists do: gather data about the observable phenomena of the Universe. However, in order to interpret...
Despite thousands of years of research, astronomers know next to nothing about how the universe is structured. One strong and accepted theory is that large galaxies are clustered together on structures similar to giant soap bubbles, with tinier galaxies sprinkled on the surface of this "soapy" layer.New observations from Tel Aviv University are giving new strength to this theory. A team led by Dr. Noah Brosch, Director of the Tel Aviv University-owned Wise Observatory, is the first...
Latest Universe Reference Libraries
Image Caption: The Hubble Extreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed by humans. Each speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is estimated to contain more than 200 billion galaxies. Credit: NASA/Wikipedia What is Cosmology? I once commented to an acquaintance that I was fascinated by the field of Cosmology, and mused that if I had more time, I...
Physics is a natural science involving the study of matter and its motion through space-time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. On a broader scale, it also involves the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy. Physics was part of natural philosophy until the Scientific Revolution in the 16th century, when the natural...
Centaurus Constellation -- Centaurus (the centaur) was one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy, and counts also among the 88 modern constellations. A constellation of the southern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), Ptolemy catalogued thirty-seven stars in it. It contains Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf that is the nearest known star (other than the Sun) to Earth, as well as Alpha Centauri, which is a double star to which Proxima...
Large-Scale Structure of the Cosmos -- Stars are organised into galaxies which in turn appear to form clusters and superclusters, separated by voids. Prior to 1989 it was commonly assumed that the superclusters were the largest structures in existence, and that they were distributed more-or-less uniformly throughout the universe in every direction. However, in 1989, Margaret Geller and John Huchra discovered the "Great Wall", a sheet of galaxies more than 500 million light years long...
Cosmology -- area of science that aims at a comprehensive theory of the structure and evolution of the entire physical universe. Modern Cosmological Theories Present models of the universe hold two fundamental premises: the cosmological principle and the dominant role of gravitation. Derived by Hubble, the cosmological principle holds that if a large enough sample of galaxies is considered, the universe looks the same from all positions and in all directions in space. The second point...
