Browse Physics

The breaking of charge-parity symmetry at lower temperatures than expected in the initial stages of the big bang could explain the abundance of matter over antimatter in the universe.

The observation of nearby galaxies provides new and stronger limits on dark matter.

A satellite currently hunting for planets around distant stars could potentially spot black holes that some theories take for the missing dark matter.

Smallish black holes left behind from the early universe might cause detectible vibrations as they pass through the sun or other stars.

Cosmic microwave background data have been combed for evidence of bubble universe collisions that might signal the existence of eternal inflation.

The idea that the observed expansion of the universe is related to our unique vantage point—as opposed to dark energy—seems to be inconsistent with telescope data.

Gravitational lensing distorts maps of the cosmic microwave background, providing yet another way of probing the matter and energy content of the universe.

On the largest distance scales, the distribution of galaxies appears to be clumpier than the standard cosmological model predicts.

The spatial distribution of dark matter around different types of galaxies can be explained if its particles scatter one another, theorist suggest, but only if the interaction has a finite range.

The IceCube neutrino detector buried in the Antarctic ice reports that high-energy neutrinos, expected from gamma-ray bursts, have yet to be observed.

The idea of inflation–an exponential expansion of the universe in its first moments–was published in 1981, in a paper that imported new ideas from particle physics into theoretical cosmology.

A modification of the theory of gravity can explain the dynamics of gas-rich galaxies without the need for dark matter.

LISA, a future gravitational wave detector, could find evidence that the early universe had fewer than three spatial dimensions.

A set of proposed relations among observable quantities may allow strong tests of whether a rapid expansion of the very early universe produced the seeds of the large-scale structure we see today.

A hypothetical particle might explain both the existence of dark matter and the prevalence of matter over antimatter.

Results from the first three weeks of running the XENON100 experiment show its promise as a sensitive detector of particle dark matter in the form of WIMPs.

How do gravitational singularities avoid being trapped by event horizons?

New data from the PAMELA satellite on the abundance of antiprotons in cosmic rays still leave the door open for dark matter theories, as well as other explanations.

Where do cosmic magnetic fields come from?