The Latest Breaking News on Physics

We don't know if dark matter exists. So why do astronomers keep looking?

Scientists know very little about the matter that makes up the galaxies in the Universe. About 20% of the matter in galaxies is visible or baryonic: subatomic particles like protons, neutrons and electrons. The other 80%, referred to as “dark matter”, remains mysterious and unseen.

The Conversation · Aug 30, 2022

New Webb telescope observations throw a wrench in our understanding of the Big Bang

The latest Webb observations do reveal some strange and unexpected things about the universe

Inverse · Aug 28, 2022

Our atom-moving laser sculpts matter into weird new shapes – new research

Getting atoms to do what you want isn’t easy – but it’s at the heart of a lot of groundbreaking research in physics.

The Conversation · Aug 24, 2022

The search for dark matter

In a gold mine at the edge of a rugged mountain range, scientists are searching for something no-one has ever seen.

ABC News · Aug 20, 2022

Bizarre black holes and dark matter conspired to make the universe as we see it

Primordial black holes could have pulled matter toward it to trigger stellar formation, but matter consumed by a black hole also heats nearby gas, causing it to push away.

Inverse · Aug 20, 2022

Laboratory to study dark matter opens 1km under Australian town – with no bananas allowed

From deep inside a gold mine in Stawell, Victoria, researchers are hunting for the invisible substance thought to make up 85% of the matter in the universe

The Guardian - AU · Aug 18, 2022

Look! New image shows an elusive black hole behavior for the first time

A reprocessing of Event Horizon Telescope data yields a ring of photons around the black hole at M87.

Inverse · Aug 18, 2022

Physicists discover a mind-bending puzzle about protons at the quantum level

Quarks can sneak in and give protons a little extra heft now and then.

Inverse · Aug 17, 2022

5 years ago, scientists observed a new kind of cosmic explosion

Two neutron stars slammed into each other and created a never-before-seen event.

Inverse · Aug 17, 2022

Astronomers discovered the earliest known dark matter — and it's not behaving as predicted

For the first time, scientists used the radiation residue of the Big Bang to measure dark matter around extremely distant galaxies.

Inverse · Aug 13, 2022