universes

James Webb Space Telescope instrument gets ready to probe the universe’s chemistry

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is preparing for a deep-space chemistry experiment. During the observatory’s commissioning and ongoing mirror alignment, Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) team successfully finished initial check-out and characterization of three mechanisms that are key for the instrument to do its work. “The NIRSpec team will continue their commissioning efforts. The whole team … Read more

Mind-Bending New Multiverse Scenario Could Explain a Strange Higgs Boson Feature

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When researchers at the Large Hadron Collider discovered the elusive Higgs particle in 2012, it was a landmark for particle physics. It solved a very thorny problem, validating and allowing the Standard Model of particle physics to hold.   But, as is often the case with new discoveries, while some questions were neatly answered, others … Read more

Powerful, nearby black holes could help to explain universe’s origins

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The Haro 11 galaxy. Like Tololo 0440-381, this nearby galaxy gives off a type of radiation that scientists think resembles the characteristics of the earliest stars in the universe. Haro 11 is about 300 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor.  (Image credit: ESA/Hubble/ESO and NASA) Nearby galaxies and their black holes could hold the … Read more

James Webb telescope: how it could uncover some of the universe’s best-kept secrets

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Martin Barstow, Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science, University of Leicester If everything goes according to plan, we will soon enter a new era of astronomy. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and … Read more