gravitational-waves

For decades physicists have been puzzling over the enigma of dark matter. We think it makes up 85% of the matter in the universe, but the mysterious substance cannot be seen or detected, and we know about it mainly through observations of the gravitational effects it has on other things. But now scientists believe they may be a step closer to detecting it. Science editor Ian Sample explains to Ma…

Andy Tomaswick (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/andy-tomaswick)
3d ago

A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars ignited - literally the “let there be light” moment for the universe. Now known to astronomers as Population III, or Pop III, stars, these giants were very different from the stars we know today. They were formed out of pristine hydrogen and helium, with almost no “metal” (i.e. other elements) holding them back. They were also huge, …

Three OzGrav researchers have been awarded prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowships, supporting ambitious research across fast radio bursts, gravitational waves and dark energy. Congratulations to Dr Manisha Caleb, Dr Daniel Reardon and Dr Cullan Howlett, who were named among the recipients of the 2026 Future Fellowships funding round. ARC Future Fellowships support outsta…

When two black holes collide and merge, the newly formed black hole briefly “rings” like a bell. It sends gravitational waves through space at certain frequencies before the signal gradually fades away. Scientists call this final stage of the collision the ringdown. The ringdown may reveal more about black holes than researchers previously realized—including whether […] The post Black Holes May B…

I know there are already a few of these questions on here. But the questions - and answers - seem to get lost in a discussion of coordinate systems and proper time. This is an attempt to set up the thought experiment in a way that doesn't require too much math and isn't embedded too deeply in a choice of coordinates. We have a sphere of some material with an equation of state that gives a strictl…

During the earliest phases of star and planet formation, a young star is surrounded by a disc that can become gravitationally unstable. Indeed, if the protoplanetary disc is sufficiently massive, its self-gravity triggers the formation of large scale spiral arms, transporting angular momentum, trapping solid particles and, potentially, collapsing to form sub-stellar companions. In this paper, we …

In the standard picture of gravitational lensing, we have a picture like the one you can see as Figure 1 of this paper (I don't know if I can copy/paste it). In it, the source S and the observer O are both at a finite distance from the lens L, and both on the same side. Light curves a little bit around the lens, and an image is formed on the same side of the lens as the source. Now, in almost eve…

Dear experimental physics community! Below I present a significant result of quantum gravity demonstrated on 2 independent experimental channels . The codes are verifiable by anyone, using raw strain data from LIGO-Virgo-Kagra and Fermi/LAT, and include strict null tests to rule out the possibility of instrumental artifacts. The first pipeline (gravitational wave pipeline) produces 31.9 sigma on …

Evan Gough (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/ion23drive)
11d ago

The ASTRID cosmological simulation has run from the Universe's early days up to the present day, z=0. ASTRID is larger than some other simulations, and smaller than others. But with a higher number of particles, it has higher-resolution than its fellows. Among other things, this can tell astronomers where to look for gravitational waves from black hole mergers with future GW observatories.

OzGrav Chief Investigator Distinguished Professor Susan Scott has been awarded the 2026 Harrie Massey Medal and Prize, one of Australian physics’ most prestigious honours.  The Australian Institute of Physics (AIP), jointly with the UK Institute of Physics (IoP), awarded Professor Scott the Medal in recognition of her “groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of general relativity, cosmology and …

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