EXPLAINED: 8 | Rare Historical Photos

The Bizarrely Unbalanced Early Universe Might Explain Why We Exist

New data collected by researchers using Japan’s Subaru telescope reveal insights into why the universe, and everything in it, exists.

Inverse · Jul 29, 2023

Extremely distant galaxy reveals stories of stars from their cradles to their graves

Located 13.2 billion light years away, a galaxy that existed just 600 million years after the Big Bang is home to one of the most distant sites of star birth, and death, ever seen.

Space · Jul 28, 2023

Measuring helium in distant galaxies may give physicists insight into why the universe exists

When theoretical physicists like myself say that we’re studying why the universe exists, we sound like philosophers. But new data collected by researchers using Japan’s Subaru telescope has revealed insights into that very question.

The Conversation · Jul 26, 2023

A subtle symphony of ripples in spacetime – astronomers use dead stars to measure gravitational waves produced by ancient black holes

An international team of astronomers has detected a faint signal of gravitational waves reverberating through the universe. By using dead stars as a giant network of gravitational wave detectors, the collaboration – called NANOGrav – was able to measure a low-frequency hum from a chorus of ripples of spacetime.

The Conversation · Jun 30, 2023

Why didn't the infant universe collapse into a black hole?

Why didn't the universe collapse into a black hole during the earliest moments of the Big Bang? Simply put, because that's not how you make a black hole.

Space · Jun 21, 2023

James Webb Telescope finds evidence of 'celestial monster' stars the size of 10,000 suns lurking at the dawn of time

The James Webb Space Telescope has found key chemical fingerprints of supermassive stars just 440 million years after the Big Bang.

LiveScience · May 19, 2023

Cosmic monsters found lurking at heart of ancient star clusters by the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope has shown that supermassive stars may lurk at the heart of globular clusters born shortly after the Big Bang.

Space · May 16, 2023

Stephen Hawking and I created his final theory of the cosmos – here's what it reveals about the origins of time and life

The late physicist Stephen Hawking first asked me to work with him to develop “a new quantum theory of the Big Bang” in 1998. What started out as a doctoral project evolved over some 20 years into an intense collaboration that ended only with his passing on March 14 2018.

The Conversation · May 10, 2023

Traces of the universe’s first stars discovered by researchers

‘These findings bring us one step closer to understanding the nature of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang,’ the European Southern Observatory says of the University of Florence study

Evening Standard · May 3, 2023

Why do we exist? Fermilab’s DUNE project involving neutrino particles aims to answer that very big question

Fermilab physicist Sam Zeller talks about trying to discover why matter and antimatter should have but didn’t all annihilate at the time of the Big Bang. Which allowed us to be here today.

Chicago Sun-Times · Apr 28, 2023