Oppenheimer Almost Discovered Black Holes Before He Became ‘Destroyer of Worlds’
Before leading the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer co-authored a paper explaining that the most massive stars must eventually become what we would now call a black hole
Giant ‘Gravity Hole’ in the Ocean May Be the Ghost of an Ancient Sea
A vast expanse of the Indian Ocean is a staggering 100 meters lower than the global average sea level because of a major dip in Earth’s gravity. Scientists now think they know the cause
Gravitational-Wave Search Resumes after Three Years and Lots of Headaches
Researchers still hope to discover hundreds of new binary black hole mergers despite technical setbacks that have sidelined key detectors in Italy and Japan
Physicists Create Biggest-Ever Schrödinger’s Cat
Physicists have put the largest-ever object into a quantum superposition
Mirror-Image Supernova Yields Surprising Estimate of Cosmic Growth
A new way to gauge the universe’s expansion rate has delivered a confusing result that may conflict with previous related measurements
Dark Matter Hunters Need Fresh Answers
The hunt for dark matter is in crisis, and it’s time for radical new ideas to explain our universe
Has Anyone Created a Black Hole on Earth?
A lab-made black hole is beyond current technology but could be possible one day
Is Our Universe a Hologram? Physicists Debate Famous Idea on Its 25th Anniversary
The Ads/CFT duality conjecture suggests our universe is a hologram, enabling significant discoveries in the 25 years since it was first proposed
Could Dragons from Game of Thrones Actually Fly? Aeronautical Engineering and Math Says They Could
Dragon flight in Game of Thrones comes from wing area, weight, speed and hints of a different atmosphere than that of Earth
Astronomers Might See Dark Matter by Staring into the Void
Vast reaches of mostly empty space could offer superior odds for detecting the invisible substance thought to make up more than 80 percent of the material in the universe
Our Sun Could Someday Reveal the Surfaces of Alien Earths
In the far future, we could reveal detailed views of distant worlds by turning our home star into a gravitational lens
Physicists Find a Shortcut to Seeing an Elusive Quantum Glow
Once considered practically unseeable, a phenomenon called the Unruh effect might soon be revealed in laboratory experiments