Single Hubble image captured supernova at three different times
Enlarge / On the left, the full Hubble image. On the right, different images of the gravitationally lensed object.NASA, ESA, STScI, Wenlei Chen, Patrick Kelly Over the last few decades, we've gotten much better at observing supernovae as they're happening. Orbiting telescopes can now pick up the high-energy photons emitted and figure out their source,…
Lots of strange things about Saturn can be explained by a...
Saturn is an unusual planet in some obvious ways, most notably its extensive ring system. But it's also strange in some less obvious ways: The rings appear to be far, far younger than the planet, and they stay stably in the plane of Saturn's orbit while the planet's axis of rotation wobbles around dramatically. A…
Researchers measure the gravity exerted by a 90 milligram object
Enlarge / The experimental setup.Tobias Westphal / University of Vienna Gravity may feel like one of the most familiar forces, but it's actually among those we understand least. We know our current model of gravity is inconsistent with quantum mechanics. It also fails to account for the phenomena we've termed dark matter and dark energy.…
The Expanse S5 review: The show is bigger, bolder, and better...
Enlarge / Space is mind-bogglingly big... but what happens there may not stay there. The science fiction space opera is by now a well-known genre, and yet somehow The Expanse is hard to describe. Let me try to sum it up at its most basic: The Expanse is a show about space. It is a…
Tiny pendulum may reveal gravity’s secrets
Gravity is, at heart, a mystery. Yes, we can talk about curvature of space-time and perhaps make analogies with stretched rubber sheets. But we don’t know why mass causes space-time to curve. To put it another way, in our theory of gravity, matter is the scenery and space-time is both cast and stage crew. But…
Experiment finds that gravity still works down to 50 micrometers
Gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces, but it's the only force that operates over very long distances. Hence, planets orbit stars, stars form galaxies, and galaxies cluster. Gravity also operates at the tiniest of scales, too, but its weakness makes it very hard to detect its influence. It's worth trying, though, as violations…
Alternative theory of gravity makes an almost testable forecast
Enlarge / Galaxy clusters generated by the Universe simulator IllustrisTNG. From our current perspective, the Universe seems to be dominated by two things we find frustratingly difficult to understand. One of these is dark matter, which describes the fact that everything from galaxies on up behaves as if it has more mass than we can…
British task forces seen flying the Gravity Match video
What the Future February 16, 2019 Sci-TechMilitary
Ask Ethan: Are Gravitational Waves Themselves Affected By Gravity?
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Any distant gravitational source can emit gravitational waves and send out a signal that deforms the fabric of space, which manifests...
