news 2023

From creating new navigation systems to remixing old experiments, here are Imperial's top five quantum moments from 2023. Throughout 2023 Imperial has had many quantum breakthroughs. From wavefunction experiments to satellite-free navigation systems, this is 2023's round-up of quantum research at Imperial and how it's making its way out of the lab.

Toys aren't just sitting under the Christmas tree patiently waiting to be opened, they are also playing a significant role in scientific research at Cardiff University. Right across the University, the gifts old and young might receive this year are helping further our understanding of human development, democratising biomedical research, or helping shed light on some of the universe's unanswered questions.

A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime is announced today in two papers published simultaneously by UCL physicists. Modern physics is founded upon two pillars: quantum theory on the one hand, which governs the smallest particles in the universe, and Einstein's theory of general relativity on the other, which explains gravity through the bending of spacetime.

A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime is announced today in two papers published simultaneously by UCL physicists. Modern physics is founded upon two pillars: quantum theory on the one hand, which governs the smallest particles in the universe, and Einstein's theory of general relativity on the other, which explains gravity through the bending of spacetime.

An entirely new way to probe how active black holes behave when they eat has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. A sample of active black holes at the centre of 136 galaxies were found to shine in microwave and X-ray light in the same way, no matter their appetite for the surrounding galactic matter like clouds of gas and dust.

An international collaboration involving UCL researchers has discovered six planets orbiting their central star in a rhythmic beat, a rare case of an "in sync" gravitational lockstep that could offer deep insight into planet formation and evolution. The findings, published in Nature , are particularly valuable as the planets are likely to have been performing this same rhythmic dance ever since the system formed more than a billion years ago.

How did the molecular building blocks for life end up on Earth? One long-standing theory is that they could have been delivered by comets. Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge have shown how comets could deposit similar building blocks to other planets in the galaxy. It's possible that the molecules that led to life on Earth came from comets, so the same could be true for planets elsewhere in the galaxy Richard Anslow In order to deliver organic material, comets need to be travelling relatively slowly - at speeds below 15 kilometres per second.

Luminous fast blue optical transients are characterized by their intense blue light and are amongst the brightest known optical phenomena in the universe. They evolve rapidly, reaching peak brightness and fading again in a matter of days, unlike supernovae which take weeks or months. Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.

The European Space Agency (ESA) mission Euclid, whose massive optical camera was built by an international team led by UCL researchers, has released its first full-colour images of the cosmos. This is the first time a telescope has been able to create such razor-sharp astronomical images across such a large patch of the sky, and looking so far into the distant Universe.

Planetary scientists including UCL's Professor Steve Miller have detected the infrared aurorae of the ice giant Uranus after searching for more than 30 years, in a new study published in Nature Astronomy. On Earth, the Northern and Southern Lights (aurorae) occur as a result of the interaction between the stream of charged particles known as the solar wind and our magnetic field, which funnels the particles in our atmosphere around the poles.

Scientists have observed the creation of rare chemical elements in the second-brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen. Scientists have observed the creation of rare chemical elements in the second-brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen - casting new light on how heavy elements are made. Researchers examined the exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst GRB 230307A, which was caused by a neutron star merger.

The Moon is 40 million years older than scientists thought, new research reveals Published: 23 October 2023 New research on crystals brought back from the Moon by Apollo astronauts in 1972 has helped pinpoint the time of the Moon's formation to at least 4.46 billion years ago. More than 4 billion years ago, when the Solar System was still young and the Earth was still growing, a giant object the size of Mars crashed into the Earth.

Researchers from the University of Southampton, together with colleagues from the universities of Cambridge and Barcelona, have shown it's theoretically possible for black holes to exist in perfectly balanced pairs - held in equilibrium by a cosmological force - mimicking a single black hole. Black holes are massive astronomical objects that have such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Astronomers have for the first time observed the collision of two ice-giant planets in a distant solar system, a process they believe planet Earth underwent when it was just a few million years old leading to the creation of our moon. The international team, which included an expert from Cardiff University's School of Physics and Astronomy, says the collision has revealed the signature of a new type of astronomical object - a synestia, which is composed of a cloud of molten and vapourised rock and shaped like a doughnut.

The European Space Agency's Gaia mission has released a goldmine of knowledge about our galaxy and beyond. Among other findings, the star surveyor has surpassed its planned potential to reveal half a million new and faint stars in a massive cluster, identified over 380 possible cosmic lenses, and pinpointed the positions of more than 150,000 asteroids within the Solar System.

Observations of the BlueWalker 3 prototype satellite show it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, outshining all but the brightest stars. Astronomers have raised concerns that without mitigation, groups of large satellites could disrupt our ability to observe the stars from Earth and perform radio astronomy.

Scientists have demonstrated the existence of gravity between antimatter and Earth, reaffirming Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It is thought that Isaac Newton's historic work on gravity was inspired by watching an apple fall to Earth from a tree. But for decades, scientists have wondered what would happen to an "anti-apple" made of antimatter - would it fall in the same way if it existed? Until now, the question has left scientists with an incomplete picture of the Universe's gravitating content.

A new series of supercomputer simulations has offered an answer to the mystery of the origins of Saturn's rings - one that involves a massive collision in the recent history of the 4.5 billion-year-old Solar System. A new series of supercomputer simulations has offered an answer to the mystery of the origins of Saturn's rings - one that involves a massive collision in the recent history of the 4.5 billion-year-old Solar System.

Astronomers have for the first time discovered carbon-based molecules in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in the habitable zone. The international team, which includes Cardiff University astrophysicist Dr Subi Sarkar, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of K2-18 b. Orbiting a red-dwarf star 124 light years away in the constellation of Leo, K2-18 b is a 'sub-Neptune' exoplanet 2.6 times the size of Earth and 8.6 times the mass of Earth.

Galaxies from the early Universe are more like our own Milky Way than previously thought, flipping the entire narrative of how scientists think about structure formation in the Universe, according to new research published today. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of researchers including those at The University of Manchester and University of Victoria in Canada discovered that galaxies like our own Milky Way dominate throughout the universe and are surprisingly common.