The Big Bang theory as a research area encompasses the theoretical, observational, and computational study of the hot, dense early universe and its subsequent expansion, structure formation, and thermal history. It integrates general relativity, quantum field theory, nuclear physics, and plasma physics to model processes such as primordial nucleosynthesis, recombination, and inflation, and it interprets empirical data from the cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure surveys, and high-redshift observations. Research in this domain refines cosmological parameters, tests fundamental physics (e.g., dark matter, dark energy, curvature), and investigates deviations from or extensions to the standard ΛCDM cosmological model.
Stars and galaxies make up much of the universe's ordinary, observable matter. But for decades, scientists have wrestled with a cosmic conflict: There should be much more.
Astronomy
Jul 21, 2026
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Deep beneath the French-Swiss border, the world's largest scientific instrument has fallen silent. After years of smashing protons together at nearly the speed of light, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has stopped operations ...
General Physics
Jul 17, 2026
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Astronomers have used the ages of more than 155,000 stars in the Milky Way to independently estimate the age of the universe, and their findings may be good news for the standard cosmological model. The new research was reported ...
Astronomers at Durham University have made a major advance in understanding how galaxies formed and evolved in the early universe. Using powerful new observations, the team discovered the most distant example ever found of ...
Astronomy
Jul 14, 2026
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The world's most powerful particle accelerator will shutter operations Monday for four years of renovations to dramatically boost its collision capacity and the potential for unlocking one of the greatest mysteries of the ...
General Physics
Jun 27, 2026
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There are multiple ways to form black holes. The one most commonly taught in high school physics classes is that they are created from the collapse of a dying star. But there is another class of black holes, known as primordial ...
Astronomy
Jun 22, 2026
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Just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the universe was a dark and simple place. There were no galaxies like the Milky Way, no planets, and no heavy elements such as carbon or oxygen. Instead, vast clouds of ...
Astronomy
Jun 22, 2026
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Sarah Pappert is a Ph.D. candidate in astrophysics at the TUM School of Natural Sciences and conducts research at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. She is supervised by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel and Prof. ...
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2026
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Stars shine because atoms fuse in their interiors, releasing energy. When a very massive star has exhausted its nuclear fuel, radiation pressure can no longer provide sufficient counterforce to gravity. The star then collapses ...
General Physics
Jun 11, 2026
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After only four short years, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and observational cosmologists like Richard Ellis at University College London (UCL) have pushed the cosmic lookback time to an era when the universe's ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2026
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