Even after its collapse, data from the Arecibo radio telescope continues to yield groundbreaking discoveries. Scientists have used archived data to study the distortions of pulsar signals, revealing new insights into the interstellar medium and improving our ability to detect gravitational waves.
NASA has unveiled the first prototype of a telescope that will be used for the LISA mission, a groundbreaking project aimed at detecting gravitational waves in space. The mission, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, will launch around 2035 and promises to revolutionize our understanding of gravity, black holes, and the early universe.
A new theory suggests that dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up most of the universe’s mass, could be composed of primordial black holes formed during a transition from the universe’s last contraction to its current expansion phase. This ‘bouncing’ universe theory challenges the traditional Big Bang model and offers a testable hypothesis for the origin of dark matter.
A recent study casts doubt on the theory that low-frequency gravitational waves, detected by pulsar timing arrays, originated from a phase transition shortly after the Big Bang. The research suggests that a supercool phase transition, while a possible source, would face significant challenges in the rapidly expanding early universe.
Scientists have been trying to understand how supermassive black holes form through mergers of smaller black holes. However, simulations have shown that these black holes get stuck in an eternal orbit before merging. A new study suggests that self-interacting dark matter could be the missing ingredient, providing the energy dissipation necessary for the final merger. This discovery not only resolves the ‘final parsec problem’ but also offers insights into the nature of dark matter.
Scientists have discovered that neutron star collisions, the most powerful events in the universe, can briefly trap neutrinos, known as ‘ghost particles’, due to the extreme heat and density generated. This finding could help researchers better understand the creation of heavy elements like gold and silver, which are formed in these turbulent environments.
A new study suggests that the early universe may have contained far fewer primordial black holes than previously thought, complicating the search for dark matter.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have discovered the most distant pair of colliding black holes in the known universe. Located more than 13 billion light-years away, the merging pair have baffled scientists, as their rapid growth challenges current theories of black hole evolution.
