Long ago in the distant past, our entire Universe was microscopic – just like an atom – and obeyed completely different rules of cause and effect.
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Articles on Universe
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Our brain cells do look a lot like a map of the universe – but that doesn't mean they're the same thing.
Astronomers are voting to rename one of the laws of physics. The voting may have far-reaching effects leading to renaming of other laws and giving 'forgotten' scientists due credit.
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A podcast all about nothing. From the importance of doing nothing to the ill-effects of time spent in solitary confinement and what nothing means in space.
Nearly 50 years since the first man walked on the moon, our morals are still stranded on Earth.
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.
With a little bit of knowledge and a few pieces of equipment you too can look at the night sky and see it as a cosmologist does.
From a slow hum to a chirp or a bleep, what is that sound you hear whenever there's a new detection of gravitational waves?
Signals from the first stars to form in the universe have been picked up by a table-sized detector in a west Australian desert. The find also hints at an early interaction with dark matter.
From blindingly bright and burning hot to pleasantly 'candle-lit', the first years of the universe would have been spectacular to see.
A guide to meteor showers – what to look out for and when.
Religions tend to portray God as deeply concerned with humans, yet we seem hugely unimportant in the vast scheme of things.
The first reliable measure of the 3D shape of galaxies and their rotation helps to shed light on their history.
We still can't see the dark matter thought to make up about a quarter of the universe, but at least now we have a map of its structure.
What caused the Big Bang is still a mystery. And that's just one of the many unanswered questions, in spite of everything we do know about the birth of the Universe.
Is dark energy just an illusion, as is often suggested? To resolve the dilemma, interpreting the basic principles of general relativity in a complex Universe may need a rethink.
These ripples in the very fabric of the universe were hypothesized by Einstein a century ago. Now scientists have detected them for the third time in a year and a half – ushering in a new era in astrophysics.
It used to take weeks to find any of these mysterious signals from deep in space but when the new telescope started looking it found one within days. Then another.
Australia's new partnership with the European Southern Observatory will give our astronomers access to much bigger telescopes.
The recipe book for galaxy formation may need to be rewritten after the discovery of a massive galaxy that stopped making new stars early in the Universe's history.
Top contributors
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Professor, The University of Queensland
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Associate Professor and Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
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Cosmologist, University of Tasmania
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Associate professor in astronomy, Monash University
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, University of Western Australia
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Director & Distinguished Professor, Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
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John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University
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Tanya Hill is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria
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ARC Future Fellow / Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University
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Astronomer, CSIRO
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Researcher at Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University
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Head of Education and Public Outreach LSST, Australian Astronomical Observatory
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Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
