early universe

Nature provides a magnifying glass that scientists cleverly decipher to gain a rare look at the violent processes at work in a young galaxy in the early universe.

Using a powerful radio telescope to peer into the early universe, a team of California astronomers has obtained the first direct measurement of a nascent galaxy's magnetic field as it appeared 6.5 billion years ago.

(University of Colorado at Boulder) Astronomers will use a $70 million instrument designed by the University of Colorado at Boulder now set for installation on the Hubble Space Telescope in mid-October to probe the "fossil record" of gases in the early universe for clues to the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets.

Some 7.5 billion years ago, a supernova heralding the birth of a black hole went off halfway across the universe, sending a pencil-beam flash of light toward Earth that was briefly visible to the naked eye on March 19.

UC Berkeley's Joshua Bloom and colleagues, who analyzed data from PAIRITEL and Gemini South to characterize the gamma-ray burst, see such bursts as a way to probe the early universe.

(University of California - Berkeley) Some 7.5 billion years ago, a supernova heralding the birth of a black hole went off halfway across the universe, sending a pencil-beam flash of light toward Earth that was briefly visible to the naked eye on March 19.

UC Berkeley's Joshua Bloom and colleagues, who analyzed data from PAIRITEL and Gemini South to characterize the gamma-ray burst, see such bursts as a way to probe the early universe.

(European Science Foundation) The future of fundamental physics research lies in observing the early universe and developing models that explain the new data obtained.

The availability of much higher resolution data from closer to the start of the universe is creating the potential for further significant theoretical breakthroughs and progress resolving some of the most difficult and intractable questions in physics.

But this requires much more interaction between astronomical theory and observation, and in particular the development of a new breed of astronomer who understands both.

Astronomers looking at the universe's distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.

These young galaxies are the equivalent of a human baby that is 20 inches long, yet weighs 180 pounds.

(Yale University) A team of astronomers looking at the universe's distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.

The findings appeared in the April 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. These young galaxies are the equivalent of a human baby that is 20 inches long, yet weighs 180 pounds.

Gravitational radiation -- widely expected to provide "smoking gun" proof for a theory of the early universe known as "inflation" -- can be produced by another mechanism, according to physics researchers.

New measurements from some of the most distant galaxies bolster the evidence that the strongest burst of star formation in the history of the Universe occurred about two billion years after the Big Bang.

Astronomers have found evidence for a dramatic surge in star birth in a newly discovered population of massive galaxies in the early Universe.