Detecting a 9-Billion-Year-Old Signal to Astronomers Map “Dark Chemistry” of the Universe
Weekend Edition
This weekend’s stories include Charting the rise and fall of a theory of everything to A rare dying star unlike anything astronomers have ever seen.
Astronomers Detect a 9 Billion Year Old Signal-- reports SyFy Wire. "According to a recent new release from McGill University, astronomers looking for a radio signal known as the 21 Centimeter Line have picked up the signal from a galaxy 8.8 billion light years away using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India, providing information about the composition of a galaxy much nearer the beginning of the universe.."
Requiem for a string: Charting the rise and fall of a theory of everything--String theory was supposed to explain all of physics. What went wrong? asks Paul Sutter in a brilliant analysis for Ars Technica.
Why the origin of life and the Universe itself might be forever unknowable. There might be a hard limit to our knowledge of the Universe, reports astrophysicist Adam Frank for Big Think.
Astronomers map the “dark chemistry” of outer space, reports Andrei Ionescu for Earth.com. “Our results provide insights into the initial, dark chemistry stage of the formation of ice on the interstellar dust grains that will grow into the centimeter-sized pebbles from which planets form in disks,” said study lead author Melissa McClure, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. “These observations open a new window on the formation pathways for the simple and complex molecules that are needed to make the building blocks of life.”
Weird supernova remnant blows scientists’ minds--Fireworks display from rare dying star is unlike anything astronomers have seen, reports Shannon Hall for Nature.com. "I have worked on supernova remnants for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Robert Fesen, an astronomer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who imaged the remnant late last year.
Astrophysicists turn fast radio bursts into cosmic probes--As they travel across space, the ephemeral waves pick up information about galaxies and the large-scale structure of the Universe, reports Nature.com. "Although their exact causes remain uncertain, astronomers are now beginning to use the bursts as tools to probe the cosmos — from untangling the nature of the cosmic web to measuring the expansion of the Universe."
Dark matter particle that may finally shed light on cosmic mystery the 'best of both worlds,' scientists say, reports Robert Lea for Space.com. "A phase change in the early universe and particles called HYPERs could make dark matter detectable in future experiments."
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