news 2018

Scientists have discovered a thriving colony of more than three quarters of a million penguins on the Danger Islands in the Weddell Sea, East Antarctic Peninsula, where the impacts of climate change have not yet been felt and there is little human activity. While the islands were thought to be home to some penguin 'super colonies', the population size was previously unknown and widely underestimated.

A series of four studies have shed new light on the properties of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, currently our most optimal hope for evidence of biological life beyond the Solar system. Since the extent of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system was revealed in February 2017, it has captured the imagination of people the world over.

By hitting electrons with an ultra-intense laser, researchers have revealed dynamics that go beyond 'classical' physics and hint at quantum effects. Whenever light hits an object, some of the light scatters back from the surface of the object. However, if the object is moving extremely fast, and if the light is incredibly intense, strange things can happen.

Artist's illustration of a black hole called a quasar at the centre of a distant galaxy: credit NASA/JPL-Caltech By hitting electrons with an ultra-intense laser, researchers have revealed dynamics that go beyond 'classical' physics and hint at quantum effects. Whenever light hits an object, some of the light scatters back from the surface of the object.

Three Earth-like planets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 star have atmospheres that might be hospitable to life, a new study shows. Researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have analyzed the atmospheres of four Earth-sized extrasolar planets orbiting the nearby star TRAPPIST-1 , located about 40 light-years from Earth.

In a series of experiments conducted last month, Cambridge researchers experienced weightlessness testing graphene's application in space. This is the first time that graphene has been tested in space-like applications. Andrea Ferrari Working as part of a collaboration between the Graphene Flagship and the European Space Agency, researchers from the Cambridge Graphene Centre tested graphene in microgravity conditions for the first time while aboard a parabolic flight - often referred to as the 'vomit comet'.

Astronomers have looked back to a time soon after the Big Bang, and have discovered swirling gas in some of the earliest galaxies to have formed in the Universe. These 'newborns' - observed as they appeared nearly 13 billion years ago - spun like a whirlpool, similar to our own Milky Way. This is the first time that it has been possible to detect movement in galaxies at such an early point in the Universe's history.

Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which includes UCL researchers, announce their first three years of data including information on about 400 million astronomical objects such as distant galaxies billions of light years away as well as stars in our own galaxy. DES scientists are using this data to learn more about dark energy, the mysterious force believed to be accelerating the expansion of the universe.

An international team of astronomers has revealed an 'astonishing' overabundance of massive stars in a neighbouring galaxy. The discovery, made in the gigantic star-forming region 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, has 'far-reaching' consequences for our understanding of how stars transformed the pristine Universe into the one we live in today.