The standard model of cosmology is a remarkably powerful and accurate description of the universe, tracing its evolution from the big bang to its current state, but it is not without mysteries. One of the biggest unsolved questions of the standard model is known as early cosmic inflation.The idea is that in the earliest moments after the big bang, the universe had an intense snap of expansion.

Space

Universe Today

Primordial Gravitational Waves Continue to Elude Astronomers - Universe Today

Wind the cosmic clock back a few billion years and our Solar System looked much different than it does today. About 4.5 billion years ago, the young Sun shone much like it does now, though it was a little smaller. Instead of being surrounded by planets, it was ensconced in a swirling disk of gas and dust. That disk is called a protoplanetary disk and it’s where the planets eventually formed.

The Early Solar System Had a Gap Where the Asteroid Belt is Today - Universe Today

Explorers either have the benefit of having maps or the burden of creating them.  Similarly, space explorers have been building maps as they go, using all available tools.  Those tools might not always be up to the task, but at least something is better than nothing.  Now, a new map of an exploration destination has emerged – a map of the river valleys of Titan.

A map of River Beds on Titan for Dragonfly to Explore - Universe Today

On Oct. 12th, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) arrived safely at Port de Pariacabo in French Guiana after spending 16 days traveling between California and South America. Since then, the observatory was transported from California to French Guiana and brought to a cleanroom in the Guyanese Space Center (GSC).

I Could Look at James Webb Unboxing Pictures all Day - Universe Today

As we’re fond of saying here at UT, space exploration is hard. Many things can go wrong when launching thousands of kgs of highly engineered equipment that took years to develop into space.  Now, something seems to have gone wrong with NASA’s latest Discovery mission.  Lucy, launched successfully by a ULA rocket on October 16th, seems to have a solar panel that didn’t quite “latch.

Uh oh, one of Lucy's Solar Arrays Hasn't Latched Properly - Universe Today

When Carl Sagan said, “We are all made of star stuff,” he didn’t just mean we were made up of parts of our own star. Other stars contributed to the material that built our solar system, and some of that “presolar” material is still present in a pristine form inside meteorites.  Now, a team led by Dr. Nan Liu at Washington University in St. Louis took a close look at some of the parts of meteorites that formed before the Sun.

Meteorites Found With Little Pieces of Other Stars - Universe Today

Since the beginning of the Digital Age (ca. the 1970s), theoretical physicists have speculated about the possible connection between information and the physical Universe. Considering that all matter is made up of information that describes the state of a quantum system (aka.

There are 6x10^80 Bits of Information in the Observable Universe - Universe Today

Astronomers have known for years that galaxies are cannibalistic. Massive galaxies like our own Milky Way have gained mass by absorbing smaller neighbours. Now it looks like smaller galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud have also feasted on smaller neighbours.Astronomers have uncovered evidence that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, has absorbed globular clusters.

Universe Today

Stay current with all the latest news from Universe Today here and with perspectives from other news sources

TRENDING NOW

LATEST STORIES

HEADQUARTERS

LATEST TWEET

Get the weekly blindspot report right in your inbox and stay up to date with your bias blindspot.

EXPLORE MORE CURRENT TOPICS

Subscribe and get full access to Ground News

EXPERIENCE