news 2013

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. New evidence showing that black holes eject dusty matter from their surroundings, potentially affecting the growth of galaxies, has been revealed by an international team of scientists.

Differences between Martian meteorites and rocks examined by a NASA rover can be explained if Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 4000 million years ago - well before the rise of atmospheric oxygen on Earth 2500m years ago. Scientists from Oxford University investigated the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data from NASA's 'Spirit' rover that examined surface rocks in the Gusev crater on Mars.

Astronomers at the University of Birmingham, Academica Sinica in Taiwan, and the Kavli Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan, have found new evidence that the mysterious dark matter that pervades our universe behaves as predicted by the 'cold dark matter' theory known as 'CDM'.

The discovery of sand and pebbles that have turned to rock has provided the most definitive proof yet of ancient water flow on the Mars. Professor Gupta in the video slide show talks about the mission to date and describes the importance of this latest discovery. Professor Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College London, and his colleagues from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission provide the first-ever observations of ancient river sedimentary deposits in the form of conglomerates, which are pebbles, mixed with sand that have turned to rock.

Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Chicago have uncovered an important mechanism behind the generation of astrophysical magnetic fields such as that of the Sun. Scientists have known since the 18th Century that the Sun regularly oscillates between periods of high and low solar activity in an 11-year cycle, but have been unable to fully explain how this cycle is generated.

Melting glaciers account for one third of observed sea level rise, according to a new study published today in Science. The research - which used multiple satellites and an extensive collection of ground data - was led by Professor Alex Gardner of Clark University and involved the efforts of 16 researchers from 10 countries, including Dr Bert Wouters from the University of Bristol.

16 May 2013 A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life. This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life. Not just that, but the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet's surface.

Online volunteers are being asked to search for 'space warps', very rare massive galaxies that bend light around them so that they act rather like giant lenses in space. By looking through data that has never been seen by human eyes, citizen scientists can help astronomers discover some of the rarest objects in the Universe.

The maths underpinning Darwin's theory of natural selection could explain how the universe may be 'designed' to make black holes. New Oxford University research builds on the 'cosmological natural selection hypothesis' - an idea first put forward in the 1990s to explain the apparent 'fine-tuning' of the universe's basic parameters to allow for the existence of atoms, galaxies, and life itself.

Herschel bows out with study that shows early galaxies 'cooler' than predicted Physicists analysing observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have shown that galaxies in the early Universe were cooler than those we see around us today. The study draws on the star survey work of the HerMES project 1 led by Professor Seb Oliver at the University of Sussex and indicates that early galaxies were more bloated, contained more dust and were distributed over larger regions than previously thought.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have measured for the first time the effect of gravity on antihydrogen – the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen – marking an important step in understanding how antimatter behaves. Whilst scientific evidence led scientists to assume that antihydrogen had exactly the same properties as hydrogen, it had not been proven.

27 Apr 2013 A subtle difference between matter and antimatter has been observed for the first time by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The work forms part of studies to understand why the Universe only contains matter when it is believed that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the time of the Big Bang.

The LHCb collaboration at CERN has made its first observations of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the decays of the particle known as the B0s. Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe, but today the universe appears to be composed essentially of matter.

Astrophysicists discover earliest known 'starburst' galaxy in Universe University of Sussex astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory are part of an international team that has discovered a distant star-forming galaxy that challenges the current theories of galaxy evolution. Seen when the Universe was less than a billion years old (880 million years) the galaxy, known only as "HFLS3", is forming stars at a much faster rate than should be possible according to existing predictions.

Astronomers have discovered an extremely distant galaxy that is expanding by more than 2000 new stars each year. Using the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory they have seen images of the galaxy as it was when the Universe was less than a billion years old. This is the most active that astronomers have seen such a young galaxy and since this discovery they are re-thinking some fundamental ideas about how galaxies form and evolve over time.

New research from the Antarctic Peninsula published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that the summer melt season has been getting longer over the last 60 years. Dr Nick Barrand from the University of Birmingham led an analysis of data from 30 weather stations on the Antarctic Peninsula - a mountainous region extending northwards towards South America.

Using information gathered from samples of deep sea sediments, researchers from the University of Bristol report new findings regarding the dynamics of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Indonesia in 1815 - one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 1,000 years. Interpretation and understanding of such past eruptions are important for the assessment of hazards related to future eruptions.

The European Space Agency's Planck mission with the support of University astronomers has compiled the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background (the relic radiation from the Big Bang). The new map refines our understanding of the Universe's composition and evolution, and unveils new features that could challenge the foundations of our current understanding of its evolution.

A new map of the radiation left behind after the Big Bang is providing scientists with fresh insights into how our Universe formed. Europe's Planck satellite, a flagship mission for the UK Space Agency, has compiled the most detailed map ever of this leftover radiation - called the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

Europe's Planck space telescope, which University of Manchester scientists at the Jodrell Bank Observatory helped build, has compiled the most detailed map of the post-Big Bang Universe ever recorded and thrown up anomalies that current physics cannot yet explain. But the data – released today (Thursday) by the European Space Agency – also provides the best evidence yet to support the standard model of cosmology, dates the Universe at 13.82 billion years and refines our knowledge of the Universe's composition and evolution.