cosmic frontier
March 2013
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March 21, 2013breaking: Planck reveals new insight into universeThe first cosmology results from the Planck satellite reveal an older universe populated with less dark energy and more matter than expected.
February 2013
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February 15, 2013breaking: Cosmic rays born in supernova aftermathOne hundred years after the discovery of cosmic rays, a team of particle astrophysicists has definitively determined one source of these abundant yet enigmatic particles.
January 2013
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January 28, 2013feature: Illuminating the dark universeThe pursuit of dark matter and dark energy is one of the most exciting—and most challenging—areas of science. Now researchers think they’re beginning to close in.
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January 22, 2013essay: A galaxy with a viewA physicist, a software developer and a writer step outside one night to take in nature’s beauty at a mountaintop observatory in Chile.
December 2012
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December 13, 2012breaking: Ironing out an astrophysics problemUsing an X-ray laser, scientists unravel the longstanding conundrum of why extreme plasmas in space look different than expected.
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December 5, 2012breaking: Scientists propose new projects to unravel dark energy secretsScientists have risen to the challenge to design an experiment that will make measurements of millions of galaxies to probe dark energy in new ways.
November 2012
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November 1, 2012breaking: Fermi telescope gazes through fog to count the starsA recent measurement of how many gamma rays make it through a cosmic “fog” of starlight reveals just how many stars there are in the universe.
October 2012
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October 23, 2012explain it in 60 seconds: Gravitational wavesIf you could detect a bowling ball’s gravitational waves, you would know when someone threw the ball—even if you were standing outside the bowling alley.
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October 19, 2012signal to background: Learning to play the dark matter boogieA growing suite of computational instruments is helping scientists determine how fast local concentrations of dark matter move, which in turn could help them cut in on the dance of dark matter particles.
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October 16, 2012feature: Bringing the universe into full focusFrom supernova explosions to writhing tendrils of dark matter, visualizations give new life to models and theories.
September 2012
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September 5, 2012feature: The Dark Energy Camera opens its eyesA long-awaited device that will help unravel one of the universe’s most compelling mysteries gets ready to see first light.
August 2012
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August 27, 2012breaking: Pierre Auger Observatory tests particle knowledge beyond reach of LHCScientists at the Pierre Auger Observatory recently tested the theory that governs the behavior of protons at energies inaccessible at the Large Hadron Collider.
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August 8, 2012breaking: Experiment surveying large-scale clustering of matter in universe releases first dataThe Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has issued Data Release 9 (DR9), the first public release of data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). In this release BOSS, the largest of SDSS-III's four surveys, provides spectra for 535,995 newly observed galaxies, 102,100 quasars, and 116,474 stars, plus new information about objects in previous Sloan surveys (SDSS-I and II).
July 2012
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July 26, 2012breaking: Endeavour crew members visit CERN to commemorate year of AMSFive U.S. astronauts spoke at CERN Wednesday to celebrate a year of data-collection by the largest experiment in space.
March 2012
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March 5, 2012breaking: South Pole scientists seek neutrino hotspots to unravel cosmic mysteryScientists at the IceCube experiment recently announced the results of their inquiry into whether two of the cosmos' greatest mysteries are related.
February 2012
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February 1, 2012breaking: Calculating the universeSince 2000, the three Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS I, II, and III) have surveyed well over a quarter of the night sky, producing the biggest 3-D color map of the universe ever made. Now, scientists have used this visual information for the most accurate computation yet of how matter clumped together – from a time when the universe was only half its present age until now.
October 2011
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October 14, 2011breaking: Bubble chamber gets more precise in dark matter searchThe 1970s were a thriving time in the world of physics, heralding such milestones as the development of the Standard Model and the discovery of the bottom quark. Now scientists at Fermilab are bringing some experimental pieces of that era back – bubble chambers and fixed-target physics. Peter Cooper, a Fermilab physicist, is heading a new experiment calibrating the classic bubble chamber technology, which is used today to search for dark matter.
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October 13, 2011breaking: Gamma-ray telescope designer awarded 2012 Panofsky PrizeWilliam Atwood, a leading member of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope collaboration, will receive the 2012 W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics from the American Physical Society for his work as co-designer of the Large Area Telescope, the main instrument on Fermi, and for using the LAT to investigate the universe in gamma rays.
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October 7, 2011breaking: Mission control CERN: Inside the AMS-02 command centerAt a control center located at CERN in Prevessin, France, scientists rotate in eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day. They plan to do this for 20 years while monitoring the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS-02, by far the largest fundamental particle physics experiment in space, which is orbiting the Earth as an appendage of the International Space Station. There it detects charged cosmic rays, searching for antimatter and hoping to measure the mass of dark matter .
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October 4, 2011breaking: International committee maps future of particle physicsThis week an international organization made public their vision for the future of particle physics across the globe. The International Committee for Future Accelerators have placed on the web their report, "Beacons of Discovery."
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