Confirmation bias, the psychological effect that makes people unconsciously interpret information to confirm their beliefs, is a big threat to cosmology.
The ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider may help unravel some of nature’s grestest mysteries.
John Vogel/wikimedia
The tiniest of particles could have huge potential to solve the greatest mysteries of the universe - including why there is more matter than antimatter.
Dark matter is notoriously hard to detect, but a new experiment might finally shed light on this mysterious substance.
Dirk Dallas/Flickr
A new detector built deep underground in a gold mine will hopefully unravel the mystery of dark matter.
Understanding how galaxies are arranged could be the key to figuring what causes the expansion of the universe.
ESA/Hubble, NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast)
Dark matter’s mysteries are being steadily unravelled by new studies of remote galaxies.
Looking for dark matter in the galaxy collisions such as in Abell 2744, dubbed Pandora’s Cluster.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/ITA/INAF/J.Merten et al, Lensing: NASA/STScI; NAOJ/Subaru; ESO/VLT, Optical: NASA/STScI/R.Dupke
Every 30 mil years, Earth has to deal with more comet crashes from space and more intense geological activity from within. Dark matter may be the culprit in these episodes that can cause mass extinction.
Artist’s impression of the Square Kilometre Array at night.
SKA Organisation
Telescopes have come a long way since the days when they were all about lone astronomers watching the night sky through their upstairs windows. Today teams of astrophysicists build and use much more modern…
This artist’s impression of the Milky Way galaxy. The blue halo of material surrounding the galaxy indicates the expected distribution of the mysterious dark matter.
ESO/L. Calçada
While invisible, dark matter completely dominates our Milky Way, recent measurements of just how much dark matter there is have revealed a bit of a mystery. In a paper published today in the Astrophysical…
Scary but fascinating.
NASA and M. Weiss (Chandra X -ray Center)
Katherine Mack, astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne, answered questions posed by the public on Reddit. The Conversation has curated the highlights. Dark Matter How do you explain dark matter…
Virgo consortium: the web that holds the galaxies together.
Rich Murray
According to cosmologists, galaxies are joined together by filaments, quite literally. These filaments form the cosmic web and are made of mostly dark matter, many stars and some gas. Observing these filaments…
Dark matter is still a bit of mystery.
Fractured Studios
A US team with a highly sensitive dark matter detector has just finished its first run. It has found nothing, and that is still big news. Physicists can explain accurately the behaviour of what makes matter…
The made up mysteries of dark matter may now be not needed.
ESO/L. Calçada
Astronomers have been searching for a mysterious substance called “dark matter” since the 1930s. Most scientists still believe it exists, despite many fruitless decades. Now we propose a new theory of…