Lifeboat Foundation

Yeah, it sounds goth, but it could explain the enormous size of certain black holes.

In the distant future, our own galaxy could join hearts with its galactic neighbor Andromeda.

Lattice QCD is not only teaching us how the strong interactions lead to the overwhelming majority of the mass of normal matter in our Universe, but holds the potential to teach us about all sorts of other phenomena, from nuclear reactions to dark matter.

Later today, November 7th, physics professor Phiala Shanahan will be delivering a public lecture from Perimeter Institute, and we&s;ll be live-blogging it right here at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT. You can watch the talk right here, and follow along with my commentary below. Shanahan is an expert in theoretical nuclear and particle physics and specializes in supercomputer work involving QCD, and I&s;m so curious what else she has to say.

Continue reading “At Last, Physicists Understand Where Matter’s Mass Comes From” »

An international team of astronomers has detected a new luminous quasar at a redshift of 7.02. The newly found quasi-stellar object (QSO), designated DELS J003836.10–152723.6, is the most luminous quasar known at a redshift of over 7.0. The discovery is reported in a paper published October 29 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Powered by the most massive black holes, bright quasars at high redshift are important for astronomers as they are perceived as the brightest beacons highlighting the chemical evolution of the universe most effectively. They are the most luminous and most distant, compact objects in the observable universe and their spectrum can be used, for instance, to estimate the mass of supermassive black holes (SMBHs).

However, high-redshift QSOs are extremely rare and difficult to find. So far, only two quasars with redshifts over 7.0 have been identified. This limits our understanding of SMBH growth mechanism and reionization history.

Continue reading “Astronomers discover new luminous high-redshift quasar” »

History is full of forgotten heroes. Sometimes that’s because somebody else got credit for their work. Sometimes it’s because they were women in a male-dominated world. And sometimes it’s because a couple of continents *cough* Western society *cough* decided they didn’t want to include them in the history books. Meet Ibn al-Haytham — the guy who basically invented Science with a capital S.

In the beginning, there was light, and matter, and antimatter, in an expanding and cooling Universe. But something else happened before.

Scientists just further confirmed what has long been believed: that there’s a supermassive black hole scientists named Sagittarius A* at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. This mind-blowing 1.5-minute video zooms in from a wide view of the night sky into the tiny little area where the latest telescopic observations were just made.

In a paper published on October 31st, 2018, scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) detailed how they used the GRAVITY interferometer and the four telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to create a virtual telescope that effectively has a diameter of 427 feet (130m).

Continue reading “Zoom Into the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way” »

There’s still a lot left to learn about black holes. One of the questions astronomers ask: How can black holes change our future?

It is literally a see-through galaxy.”

For one thing, it completely changes how we think galaxies owrk.

Based on observations by the European Souther Observatory’s GRAVITY instrument, this simulation shows gases swirling around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way — at just 30% the speed of light — “the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return.”

ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calçada