Black Hole

Could prime numbers be at the heart of black holes? (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)) Like physics, math has its own set of " fundamental particles " — the prime numbers , which can't be broken down into smaller natural numbers. They can only be divided by themselves…

Cannibal orcas identified near Russia, two 'extinct' marsupials found, humans do cranial modification, China's oracle bones reveal climate disaster, and a barefoot volcanologist. (Image credit: ESA | Sergio Amiti via Getty Images) Science news this week was full of bizarre and baffling animal behavior, with news of chewed-up orca fins…

Scientists have discovered over 100 more gravitational wave events. (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)) Our catalog of spacetime ripples "heard" by gravitational wave detectors here on Earth has doubled, scientists say, with newly discovered sources ranging from wobbly black hole mergers to the heaviest black hole collision detected…

Using the rules of general relativity, scientists taught robots to navigate 'artificial space-times,' with darker regions standing in for areas of intense gravity. (Image credit: Reinhardt et al. / CC-BY 4.0) Researchers have developed a method for steering microscopic swimming robots using light patterns and the principles of Einstein's theory…

Deborah Ferguson (UT Austin), Bhavesh Khamesra (Georgia Tech), and Karan Jani (Vanderbilt University)/LIGO Space-time is being driven apart. Every second that passes, the universe expands faster and faster. What is propelling this dramatic acceleration is an enigma, though – one scientists have known about, and searched for, for decades. Still,…

A subtle gravitational-wave “hum” from merging black holes may help settle the cosmic fight over how fast the universe is expanding. Astronomers have understood for many decades that the universe is expanding. To calculate how quickly it is stretching today, researchers measure a value called the Hubble constant...Read More

For decades, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. To determine how fast it is growing today, scientists calculate a value called the Hubble constant. Multiple independent techniques are used to measure it, and because they rely on the same underlying physics, they should produce matching results. Instead, measurements…

The Court of Appeal has ruled that police failed to protect a victim of child pornography, awar­ding the victim $100,000 in dama­ges. For two years between 2020 and 2022, a report of child pornography being proliferated across the digital world in Trinidad and Tobago “fell into a black hole”, as…

An artist's conception of an ancient black hole. In 1974, Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes could slowly evaporate, and eventually explode. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Milestone: Black hole radiation theorized Date: March 1, 1974 Where: Cambridge, England Who: Stephen Hawking In 1974, a brilliant 32-year-old physicist published a not-quite-two-page paper…

When a massive star runs out of fuel, its core collapses. This collapse releases a flood of neutrinos, which push a shock wave outward through the star’s layers. If the shock is strong enough, it blasts the outer layers into space, creating a supernova. If the shock is too weak,…