Big Bang’s afterglow shows universe is 80 million years older than scientists first thought

ARIS — A new examination of what is essentially the universe’s birth certificate allows astronomers to tweak the age, girth and speed of the cosmos, more secure in their knowledge of how it evolved, what it’s made of and its ultimate fate.

Sure, the universe suddenly seems to be showing its age, now calculated at 13.8 billion years — 80 million years older than scientists had thought. It’s got about 3 percent more girth — technically it’s more matter than mysterious dark energy — and it is expanding about 3 percent more slowly.

Best Image of Big Bang Afterglow Ever Confirms Standard Cosmology

If the universe were ice cream, it would be vanilla. That's the take-home message from researchers working with the European Space Agency's orbiting Planck observatory, who today released the most precise measurements yet of the afterglow of the big bang—the so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The new data from Planck confirm cosmologists' standard model of how the universe sprang into existence and what it's made of. That may disappoint scientists who were hoping for new puzzles that would lead to a deeper understanding.

Ancient, highly active galaxies discovered

Pasadena, CA — Using information gathered from several telescopes, a team of astronomers, including Carnegie’s Eric Murphy, searched the sky for very rarely seen dusty starburst galaxies, formed soon after the Big Bang. These galaxies are characterized by an unusually high rate of star formation. They are much more abundant in the early Universe than previously thought. Two of those identified are among the oldest ever found, indicating that these dusty starbursts likely evolve into the most massive galaxies ever observed in the local Universe. The results are published online March 13 by Nature.

Farthest Supernova Yet Marked Death of Very Massive Star

Astronomers are reaching ever further back in time, seeking events from the earliest days of the universe. Now, the discovery of the farthest (and thus oldest) supernova ever seen is raising hopes that astronomers will soon detect the explosive deaths of the first stars to form after the universe's birth. These stars forged the first heavy elements, which helped create smaller and longer-lived stars like our own sun.

The earliest stars looked different from modern stars. The big bang produced only three light elements—hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium—but today, stars form in gas clouds that also contain heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen. These elements radiate away enough energy to eventually cool the clouds. When the clouds cool, they fragment into smaller clumps that collapse to spawn a plethora of mostly small stars.

Big Bang and religion mixed in Cern debate

Some of Europe's most prominent scientists have opened a debate with philosophers and theologians over the origins of everything.

The event, in Geneva, Switzerland, is described as a search for "common ground" between religion and science over how the Universe began.

It will focus on the Big Bang theory.

De la Big Bang în prezent: o precizie de 5 secunde! Detalii despre Premiul Nobel pentru fizică 2012

Premiul Nobel pentru anul 2012 in fizica a fost acordat pentru studiul interactiunii dintre fotoni si materie, cu posibilitatea manipularii unui atom individual, studii in care mecanica cuantica joaca un rol fundamental. Aceste studii ar putea avea aplicatii extrem de interesante in viitor, precum stabilirea unui nou standard in precizia masurarii timpului sau a unor noi tehnologii.

Serge Haroche, de la Ecole Normale Superieure si David Wineland, de la National Institute of Standard and Technology, ambii in varsta de 68 de ani, sunt doi magicienii in manipularea atomilor. Cei doi cercetatori au reusit "inghetarea", capturarea si observarea atomilor individuali, fara sa le distruga proprietatile cuantice.

Cele mai îndepărtate obiecte astronomice

Galaxii, quasari, găuri negre, stele şi nebuloase – într-un cuvânt obiecte astronomice – sunt situate peste tot prin spaţiu, la diferite distanţe. În continuare vă prezentăm cele mai îndepărtate dintre aceste obiecte, care au cele mai mari deplasări spre roşu.

UDFj-39546284 este o structură stelară descoperită prin observaţii în infraroşu a telescopului spaţial Hubble. Aceasta are o deplasare spre roşu de aproximativ 10.3. După intense cercetări ale mai multor oameni de ştiinţă, în ianuarie 2011 s-a anunţat că lumina provenită de la acest obiect este cea mai veche din Univers. Sursa stelară propriu-zisă a luminii nici nu mai există. Aceasta este asociată cu o mini-galaxie de stele albastre care a existat aşa cum o vedem noi acum 13.2 miliarde de ani, la doar  480-500 milioane ani după Big Bang.

Cum să creezi un univers pe computer

Oamenii de ştiinţă, folosind supercomputerul Harvard’s Odyssey, au creat cea mai realistă simulare a evoluţiei cosmice de până acum. Aceştia au reuşit să creeze pe computer un întreg univers, cu naşterea şi evoluţia ulterioară a acestuia.

Cercetătorii, de la Centrul de Astrofizică Harvard-Smithson şi Institutul de Studii Teoretice Heidelberg, au dezvoltat o nouă abordare computaţională care poate modela precis naşterea şi evoluţia a sute de galaxii de-a lungul miliardelor de ani.

Supercomputer Recreates Universe From Big Bang to Today

Scientists would love to be able to rewind the universe and watch what happened from the start. Since that's not possible, researchers must create their own mini-universes inside computers and unleash the laws of physics on them, to study their evolution.

Now researchers are planning the most detailed, largest-scale simulation of this kind to date. One of the main mysteries they hope to solve with it is the origin of the dark energy that's causing the universe to accelerate in its expansion.

Dovezi care sustin Big Bang-ul

Stiinta a avansat pana la punctul in care putem deduce ceva despre intregul univers. Acest lucru a fost o mare provocare avand in vedere cat de inimaginabil de vast este universul. 

Nenumaratele stele pe care le vedeti pe cer constituie abia 3000 de vecine din aproximativ 300 de miliarde de stele care se afla in galaxia noastra, iar in univers exista pana la 100 de miliarde de galaxii. Oamenii intotdeauna si-au pus urmatoarea intrebare: universul a existat mereu asa cum il vedem noi, sau acesta a inceput cumva brusc?

Big Bang este contestat, fiind probabil mai mult "Big Chill"

Se poate ca Universul să fi început mai degrabă printr-un mare îngheţ (Big Chill) decât printr-o mare explozie (Big Bang), potrivit unui nou studiu australian.

O echipă de fizicieni teoretici crede că fisurile din cristale, cum ar fi cele de gheaţă, ne pot ajuta să înţelegem cum a luat fiinţă universul.

"Filosofii antici greci s-au întrebat din ce era formată materia: era formată dintr-o substanţă continuă, sau din atomi individuali?", a declarat autorul principal al studiului, James Quach, de la Universitatea din Melbourne, într-un comunicat de presă. "Cu un microscop foarte puternic, noi ştim acum că materia este formată din atomi."

Ce a fost inainte de Big Bang? Exista universuri paralele?

Huge Everett III, in 1954, afirma ca exista universuri paralele ca al nostru, toate fiind legate de el. In toate aceste universuri lucrurile se petrec diferit de al nostru. De exemplu, intr-unul oamenii au disparut deja, in altul razboaiele au finaluri diferite, specii disparute in universul nostru au evoluat diferit in alte universuri. Dar toate ,vedem, sunt legate, doar evenimentele se petrec diferit.

Hesiod and the Bestiary

For this week's Myth Monday, inspired by Michael K. Kellogg's chapter on Hesiod, from his delightful The Greek Search for Wisdom, I wanted to give the Hesiodic spin on the bulk of the monsters from Greek mythology. Then came another round (see : last week's Myth Monday) of The Clash of the Titans on television, and my plans were postponed -- I thought. The movie showed the Hero Who Looks Away (my nickname for Perseus) decapitating Medusa, but Pegasus and his brother failed to emerge from the severed neck. I figured I had to say something about that this week.

Produc micro-găurile negre cutremure?

Într-un articol publicat recent în revista “Physical Review Letters” de către geofizicianul Shravan Hanasoge, de la Princeton University, se arată cum “ciocnirea” unei găuri negre primordiale cu Pământul ar putea avea efecte nebănuite: producerea de... cutremure. Din fericire, cum vom vedea, aceste cutremure nu sunt catastrofice.

Time to toast our Boson buddies

YOU MUST understand, someone said once, that there is pure mathematics, and applied mathematics, and a subset of that called physics, the study of the mathematics of matter and motion. And then there is astrophysics. Beyond that, theoretical physics. Beyond that, speculation. And then there is rank speculation. And far beyond that we have cosmology.

Cosmology, boiled down, is the search for order about mass, energy and motion affecting the entire universe, turning mostly around theories of the Big Bang, but also containing amusing diversions such as the Black Hole discovered by John Howard, as well as the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker trilogy in five books, and Stephen Hawking's A short history of time, which no-one has ever had the time (or inclination) to finish.