The rate of the universe’s expansion is in dispute. But a new kind of measurement offers hope.
The universe is home to a dizzying number of stars and planets. But the vast bulk of the universe is thought to be invisible dark matter.
Illustris Collaboration
Why do astronomers believe there’s dark matter when it cannot be directly detected? Let’s look at the evidence, and see what dark matter’s presence means for our universe.
The Milky Way stretches across the sky near the Hungarian border village of Tachty in Slovakia.
EPA/PETER KOMKA
New research suggests we may be able to forget about dark matter if we tweak the laws of gravity according to imaginary bubbles in space.
An artist’s impression of Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist.
NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Josh Calcino, The University of Queensland e Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
Life could exist in another solar system in a different part our galaxy. Or in another galaxy far away. We don’t have the perfect technology yet to study such far away places but we’re still trying.
Distant stars above the ruins of Sherborne Old Castle, in the UK.
Flickr/Rich Grundy
When you look up at the vastness of space you can see hundreds, thousands and even millions of years into the past.
It would be nice to blast dangerous nuclear waste far away from Earth, or into the Sun where it won’t cause any harm. However, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
NASA
At the end of the day, the problem is that no-one on Earth wants nuclear waste stored near them, and it’s not safe or cost-effective to blast it into space.
The region around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, imaged with South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
There are probably more than a million planets in the universe for every single grain of sand on Earth. That’s a lot of planets. My guess is that there probably is life elsewhere in the Universe.
The other galaxies are there, but they are hiding a very long way away.
www.shutterstock.com
We are in the Milky Way. If you travelled on an extremely fast spaceship for more than two million years, you would reach our neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy. All other galaxies are even further away.
About a century ago, we didn’t even know that galaxies existed.
Mai Lam/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
Pretty much as soon as we understood what galaxies were, we realised they are all moving away from each other. And the ones that are further away are moving faster. In short, the universe is expanding.
The Sombrero galaxy reveals the extremes of age and shape.
NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
As galaxies get older they get rounder, and fall victim to the middle-aged spread that catches many of us humans here on Earth.
An artist’s impression of the predicted merger between our Milky Way (right) and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (left). So which galaxy will dominate?
NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger
Bigger galaxies tend to dominate the smaller, when the two collide. But the pending battle between our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy might be a much fairer fight than we previously thought.
Centaurus A.
: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Rolf Olsen; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A precursor to the Square Kilometre Array- the MeerKAT telescope - is being built right now and remarkable progress has been made in the last 12 months.
Gravitational lensing (arcs and streaks in the picture) in the galaxy cluster Abell 370.
NASA/ESA
Galaxies evolve in mysterious way. But a new study offers a fresh approach to understand them.
Here, an alien crew member, Saru on Star Trek: Discovery. We often rely on science fiction to guide our expectations of alien life. We can hope lessons about accepting beings very different from yourself can be extracted by the series end.
(Courtesy of CBS Studios)
Star Trek: Discovery explores our corner of the block – just a fraction of the galaxy. Some stars are better candidates for intelligent alien life, and it may not be anything like we imagine.