From a mysterious energy of empty space to parallel universes, cosmology’s view of ‘nothing’ is anything but boring.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Astrophysics
Displaying 101 - 120 of 210 articles
New observations show we don’t really understand the universe’s expansion.
Science and art meet on the ‘big screen’ – turning data into visuals at the Lovell Telescope, Jodrell Bank.
The pull created by a black hole is so strong that if you get too close to one – even if you are travelling away from it at the fastest speed it is possible to go – you will never be able escape.
To answer this tricky question, we have to look back in time to when the Earth was born, 4.5 billion years ago.
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.
People long assumed all the elements we see now were created during the Big Bang. But on May 2, 1952, an astronomer reported spotting new elements coming from an old star and changed our origin story.
The famous cosmologist was closely identified with black holes due to his revolutionary theoretical work explaining some of their mysterious properties.
Stephen Hawking inspired people with his work on black holes and other mysteries of the universe. Many were quick to pay tribute to the theoretical physicist who died today in the UK, aged 76.
The precious metal is literally extra-terrestrial, produced in the heart of the stars. How and under what conditions? Scientists know more thanks to a double astrophysical observation.
Deep underground, scientists research subatomic particles from space in a bid to understand the building blocks of our universe.
Cosmologists are heading back to their chalkboards as the experiments designed to figure out what this unknown 84 percent of our universe actually is come up empty.
A LIGO team member describes how the detection of a gravitational wave from a new source – merging neutron stars – vaults astronomy into a new era of ‘multi-messenger’ observations.
Astronomers have finally confirmed the source of the latest detected gravitational waves was the collission of a pair of neutron stars, what they’d been searching for all along.
All it took was a single email alert to send the world’s astronomers searching for the source of the latest gravitational wave detected.
Efforts to see the afterglow from a neutron star merger were nearly thwarted by bad weather and a cyber attack on an Australian telescope.
The gravitational wave itself is the least exciting part of the announcement from LIGO and Virgo. Observing this new source answers many longstanding questions.
Imagine the Earth pulling everything it is made up of, all of its mass, towards its centre. This happens evenly all over the Earth, causing it to take on a round shape.
In five or seven billion years time, the Sun’s life will come to an end. And it will be really spectacular - if you’re watching from far enough away.
Studying mysterious neutron stars could uncover the secrets of exotic physics – and a way to navigate the stars.
Top contributors
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia
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Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
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Professor of Astrophysics, UNSW Sydney
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ARC Australian Laureate Fellow, School of Physics, The University of Melbourne
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Pro Vice-Chancellor Flagship Initiatives, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of Physics, Penn State
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Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
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PhD; Associate Professor in Astrophysics, Monash University
