news

Antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two companion galaxies to our own Milky Way galaxy, can be seen as bright smudges in the night sky, in the centre of the photograph. Researchers have found water vapour in the disc around a young star exactly where planets may be forming.

Scientists are a step closer to unravelling the mysterious forces of the universe after working out how to measure gravity on a microscopic level. Experts have never fully understood how the force which was discovered by Isaac Newton works in the tiny quantum world. Even Einstein was baffled by quantum gravity and, in his theory of general relativity, said there is no realistic experiment which could show a quantum version of gravity.

The unique signature of a star ingesting its surrounding planets and asteroids - a metal scar imprinted on the surface of a white dwarf star - has been found for the first time by a team including UCL researchers. White dwarfs are glowing embers of stars that have burned through all their hydrogen fuel.

One of the most powerful eruptions from a black hole ever recorded has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. The mega-explosion, which took place billions of years ago, may help explain the formation of a pattern of star clusters resembling beads on a string, according to the study.

The first clear evidence of freshly baked star dust in a Type Ia supernova has been observed by an international team of astronomers. Monitored over the first three years after its explosion, the team claim the supernova - based in a spiral galaxy around 300 million lightyears away - is one of the most prolific dust-producing supernovae ever recorded.

New search finds 85 exoplanet candidates - as cool as planets in our own Solar System Astronomers have discovered 85 possible planets outside of our solar system, with temperatures closer to those of our own Solar System planets, potentially cool enough to sustain life. These exoplanet candidates, discovered using data from data from NASA's Transitioning Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), are similar in size to Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune in our Solar System.

An artist's impression of the system assuming that the massive companion star is a black hole. The brightest background star is its orbital companion, the radio pulsar PSR J0514-4002E. The two stars are separated by 8 million km and circle each other every 7 days. An international team of astronomers have found a new and unknown object in the Milky Way that is heavier than the heaviest neutron stars known and yet simultaneously lighter than the lightest black holes known.

A team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to reveal, for the first time, what lies in the local environment of galaxies in the very early Universe. This has solved one of the most puzzling mysteries in astronomy - why astronomers detect light from hydrogen atoms that should have been entirely blocked by the pristine gas that formed after the Big Bang.

Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is 'eating' its host galaxy to death. It's a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo's telescope to a modern telescope overnight Roberto Maiolino The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago.

Could you help our scientists uncover the mysterious world of invisible black holes? Become a Black Hole Hunter and you'll be taking part in scientific research that has the potential to reveal more about one of space's most intriguing aspects. All you will need is a smartphone, tablet or other computer, some guidance on how to spot the tell-tale clues, and a bit of time.

The global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration involving UCL researcher Dr Ziri Younsi has released new images of M87*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87. The new images are from observations taken in April 2018, one year after the first observations of M87* in April 2017 which resulted in the first ever image of a black hole.

An experiment outlined by a UCL-led team of scientists from the UK and India could test whether relatively large masses have a quantum nature, resolving the question of whether quantum mechanical description works at a much larger scale than that of particles and atoms. Quantum theory is typically seen as describing nature at the tiniest scales and quantum effects have not been observed in a laboratory for objects more massive than about a quintillionth of a gram, or more precisely 10^(-20)g.

Astronomers make rare exoplanet discovery - and a giant leap in detecting Earth-like bodies Astronomers have made the rare discovery of a small, cold exoplanet and its massive outer companion - shedding light on the formation of planets like Earth. The findings include a planet with radius and mass between that of the Earth and Neptune, with a potential orbit around its host star of 146 days.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration involving UCL researchers has achieved one of the most robust measurements of the constraints on the universe's expansion to date. The international group of researchers, led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), analysed nearly 1,500 supernovae using machine learning techniques.

A decade-long analysis of nearly 1,500 supernovae sheds new light on the mysterious dark energy that makes up around 70 per cent of the universe. Results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) are consistent with the standard cosmological model of a universe that is expanding at an accelerating rate, but they hint at the exciting possibility that the density of dark energy may have varied over time.

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.