Lifeboat Foundation

The enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy is having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust, and researchers don’t yet understand why.

“We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole,” said Andrea Ghez, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and a co-senior author of the research. “It’s usually a pretty quiet, wimpy black hole on a diet. We don’t know what is driving this big feast.”

A paper about the study, led by the UCLA Galactic Center Group, which Ghez heads, is published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Two University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers have identified and corrected a subtle error that was made when applying Einstein’s equations to model the growth of the universe.

Physicists usually assume that a cosmologically large system, such as the universe, is insensitive to details of the small systems contained within it. Kevin Croker, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Joel Weiner, a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, have shown that this assumption can fail for the compact objects that remain after the collapse and explosion of very large stars.

“For 80 years, we’ve generally operated under the assumption that the universe, in broad strokes, was not affected by the particular details of any small region,” said Croker. “It is now clear that general relativity can observably connect collapsed stars—regions the size of Honolulu—to the behavior of the universe as a whole, over a thousand billion billion times larger.”

Astrosat-2, 2025 India plans to send a second observatory in space. It will be a followup mission of Astrosat-1 — India’s first dedicated multi-wavelength space telescope — aimed at looking at the origin of the universe and discover new planets. ISRO is finalising a plan for the mission. Origins of the universe.

Caltech’s Katherine L. (Katie) Bouman has been named a recipient of the 2020 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics as part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team that generated the first-ever image of a black hole, while Xie Chen and Xinwen Zhu have each received 2020 New Horizons prizes from the same foundation for their work in physics and mathematics, respectively.

The Breakthrough Prize, now in its eighth year, is considered the world’s most generous science prize. Each Breakthrough Prize is $3 million and the 347 authors of the six EHT papers will divide the award.

“I was stunned and absolutely thrilled to hear the news,” says Bouman, assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences and Rosenberg Scholar in Caltech’s Division of Engineering and Applied Science. “I’m so lucky to work with an amazingly talented group of individuals that continues to push the boundaries of science every day. It is such a privilege and an honor to share this award with each one of them.”

Elements is more than just a science show. It’s your science-loving best friend, tasked with keeping you updated and interested on all the compelling, innovative and groundbreaking science happening all around us. Join our passionate hosts as they help break down and present fascinating science, from quarks to quantum theory and beyond.

This year’s other prizes include four in the life sciences, a special prize in fundamental physics for the invention of supergravity, one winner in mathematics, and a handful of $100,000 awards for early career researchers. Recipients will be honored at an awards gala to be held on November 3 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, and broadcast live on National Geographic.

A record-setting black hole picture and advances in how we perceive pain are among the winners of this year’s $3-million prizes.

BLACK holes could be a portal to another universe and our cosmos could have been born from one, a scientist has sensationally claimed.

Instant Bestseller on Amazon, this new book is a collection of remarkable essays on our near future with AI, cybernetics, transhumanism, the Simulation Hypothesis, the Technological Singularity, the emergence of the Global Mind, and corresponding philosophical issues. Written by Alex M. Vikoulov; Foreword by Antonin Tuynman, PhD; Publisher: Ecstadelic Media Group; Publication Date: September 1, 2019; Format: Kindle eBook; Print Book Length: 245 pages; ISBN: 9781733426107; Price: $9.99.

Ecstadelic Media Group releases a new non-fiction book The Intelligence Supernova: Essays on Cybernetic Transhumanism, The Simulation Singularity & The Syntellect Emergence. Written by Alex M. Vikoulov; Foreword by Antonin Tuynman PhD; Format: Kindle eBook (Press Release, San Francisco, CA, USA, September 3, 2019 11.00 AM PST)

Research finds a possible explanation for accelerating cosmic expansion that challenges standard cosmological models. Stuart Gary reports.