Seeing the birth of the universe in an atom of hydrogen

Windows to the past, stars can unveil the history of our universe, currently estimated to be 14 billion years old. The farther away the star, the older it is—and the oldest stars are the most difficult to detect. Current ...

Baby galaxies grew up quickly

Baby galaxies from the young Universe more than 12 billion years ago evolved faster than previously thought, shows new research from the Niels Bohr Institute. This means that already in the early history of the Universe, ...

Measuring magnetic fields

(Phys.org) -- Polarized light is a familiar phenomenon, as people who prefer polarized sunglasses can testify. The electric field in a beam of light can vibrate either left-right or up-down, and the scattering or reflection ...

Astronomers get rare peek at early stage of star formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers have obtained a first tantalizing look at a crucial early stage in star formation. The new observations promise to help scientists understand the early stages ...

A serendipitous gravitational lens

(PhysOrg.com) -- The path traveled by a light beam will bend in the presence of matter. This remarkable prediction, reached by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, was confirmed by observations of the solar eclipse ...

The cool clouds of Carina

(PhysOrg.com) -- Observations made with the APEX telescope in submillimetre-wavelength light reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This site of violent star formation, which plays host to ...

Making a spectacle of star formation in Orion

(PhysOrg.com) -- Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its ...

Planck highlights the complexity of star formation

New images from ESA's Planck space observatory reveal the forces driving star formation and give astronomers a way to understand the complex physics that shape the dust and gas in our Galaxy.

Mapping the Milky Way's magnetic field in 3D

We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth's magnetic field. It turns out that most objects in space have magnetic fields but it's quite tricky to measure them. Astronomers have developed an ingenious way to measure ...

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