Topic: Cosmology

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In Pictures: Space Photos of the Day: Remarkable Hubble photos
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Exoplanets
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Whirlpools
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Fireworks
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Hubble

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Amazing photo shows 'swarm' of stars (+video)

Tens of thousands of stars can be seen clustered together in a new image.
Attempting to recreate Big Bang conditions, CERN scientists break energy record

Scientists at CERN may be getting closer to Higgs boson the particle that could help explain the birth of the universe billions of years ago.
Survey: Galaxies become cannibals as teens

Billions of years after the Big Bang, adolescent galaxies seem to be snacking on smaller galaxies.
Faster-than-light neutrinos? Why nobody is surprised it might be an error.

Last year, European particle physicists observed neutrinos apparently traveling faster than the speed of light. But now it seems that it was a bad measurement, which is no surprise to the physics community.
Will 2012 be the year scientists find the 'God Particle'? (+video)

Researchers at CERN are cranking up the power on their Large Hadron Collider, in a last-ditch attempt to uncover the Higgs Boson, the so-called God Particle thought to be responsible for giving matter the property of mass. This will be their last chance to find the elusive particle before the particle-smasher is shut down for an upgrade.
Dwarf galaxies: breakthrough in bid to find 'fossils' of early universe

A team of astronomers reports that it has detected the most distant dwarf galaxy yet discovered orbiting an enormous elliptical galaxy some 10 billion light-years away.
NASA able to observe a long time ago, in newly found galaxies far, far away

Researchers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to find five tiny but bright galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years from Earth.
Humongous 'El Gordo' galaxy cluster packs mass of 2 quadrillion stars

Located some7 billion light-years from Earth, 'El Gordo' is the biggest and hottest cluster of galaxies ever observed in the early universe.
Scientists unveil biggest ever map of universe's dark matter

Even though it cannot be seen directly, dark matter, which represents 98 percent of the mass of the universe, exerts a gravitational pull on normal matter, including light. By measuring its tug on starlight, astronomers have mapped the distribution of this mysterious substance.
Why is the Higgs boson so important?

Physicists at CERN are increasingly confident that they have discovered the elusive Higgs boson – the so-called 'God particle' that is thought to be a key component of our understanding of the cosmos. Why does the Higgs boson matter?
Discovery that universe is expanding faster and faster earns physics Nobel

Three astronomers will share the Nobel prize in physics, for their finding that the universe's post-Big Bang expansion is neither slowing nor retreating, but is speeding up.
Nobel Prize for physics: Universe expansion accelerating, not slowing down

Three Americans won the $1.5 million Nobel Prize of physics for research showing that the expansion of the universe is speeding up.The prize will be split by Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess.
God particle, the Higgs boson, could be found in 2012

God particle: The Higgs boson isn't just any particle. It's the linchpin of the Standard Model of particle physics theory that explains the Big Bang, because it is believed to answer a fundamental question about why matter has mass.
Giant black holes a window into origins of earliest galaxies

Scientists have found evidence of supermassive black holes at the core of the earliest galaxies, a discovery that could shape theories about galaxy formation.
The hunt for antimatter begins at the space station: Will dilithium be next?

A $2 billion particle detector, newly installed on the International Space Station, begins its search for antimatter, dark matter, quarks, and more.
Did the universe begin as a slender thread?

A new framework for the universe's formation suggests that it began as a single thready line, then evolved into a plane, and only then the three-dimensional space we now inhabit. This could simplify sticky cosmological questions, including dark matter and gravity waves.
In Pictures: Space Photos of the Day: Remarkable Hubble photos
Alien fossils found in meteorite? Scientists urge skepticism.

Alien fossils have been discovered in meteorites from outer space, claims a NASA astrobiologist. Other scientists are urging caution.
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Exoplanets
Oldest galaxy: Hubble telescope detects farthest, oldest galaxy yet

Oldest galaxy: Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have detected a galaxy that formed just 500 million years after the Big Bang, making it the most distant and oldest galaxy discovered so far.
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Whirlpools
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Fireworks
Milky Way 'bubbles' baffle astronomers searching for dark matter

A team of scientists, using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, says a pair of puzzling bubbles gets in the way of their quest to search for dark matter at the core of the Milky Way.
Astronomers build on a Hubble find, report light from oldest galaxy

Astronomers, aiming a ground-based telescope at a target spotted by the Hubble in space, confirm the find as the oldest galaxy so far. Its light was emitted at a time when hydrogen and helium fog still filled the universe.
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Hubble