#cosmology

Interesting. @startswithabang

"The team proposes that the black hole formed there via the direct collapse of a gas cloud – a process that may explain some of the incredibly massive black holes Webb has found in the early universe."

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/webb/2025/07/15/nasas-webb-finds-possible-direct-collapse-black-hole/

Paper [ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/addcfe [

#BlackHoles #Cosmology #JWST #Telescopes

Did you know that there is a square star?
#HD44179 #astronomy #cosmology
#square #stars

Most massive #BlackHole merger to date detected… For my #astronomy and #Cosmology nerd followers I’m sure this is a big deal.

"This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation," says Mark Hannam of Cardiff University and a member of the LVK Collaboration. "Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models. One possibility is that the two black holes in this binary formed through earlier mergers of smaller black holes." #physics #science

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/ligo-detects-most-massive-black-hole-merger-to-date

No More CMB-S4…

There was some sad news for cosmologists last week in that the Government of the United States of America – specifically the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) – has cancelled the next generation of ground-based cosmic microwave background experiments, called CMB-S4. This would have been the fourth generation This would have consisted of several dedicated telescopes equipped with highly sensitive superconducting cameras.

The plan was that these telescopes would spend about seven years listening to the microwave sky at two locations already recognized for their suitability: the South Pole, which was to host several telescopes of varying sizes to observe across a wide range of microwave frequencies; and the Atacama Plateau in Chile, a high-desert site which would have hosted two large telescopes that can also observe several different frequencies. The South Pole telescopes were to conduct an ultra-deep survey of 3% of the sky, while the Atacama telescopes would conduct a complementary ultra-wide and deep survey of 70% of the sky. Together, the two sites promised to provide a dramatic leap forward in our understanding of the fundamental nature of space and time and the evolution of the Universe.

Longstanding readers of this blog will remember that in 2014 the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole was claimed to have detected the B-mode polarization signal that would be a diagnostic of primordial gravitational waves generated during a burst of cosmic inflation. That result was later shown to be dominated by Galactic dust emission which could not be identified from its spectral properties, as BICEP2 operated at only one frequency. With an order of magnitude more detectors than previous ground-based CMB experiments, wider frequency coverage, and better control of systematic errors, CMB-S4 would have reduced the limits on earlier observations by a factor of five, enabling either the direct detection of primordial gravitational waves or ruling out large classes of inflationary models and dramatically impacting current thought on cosmic inflation.

For more technical information about CMB-S4 see the 2021 White Paper here.

Despite its very strong science case, and the fact that it was ranked as second-highest priority in the 2020 Decadal Survey, it seems that CMB-S4 is no more. Sad.

#2020DecadalSurvey #AtacamaDesert #CMBS4 #CosmicMicrowaveBackground #Cosmology #SouthPole #Stage4CosmicMicrowaveBackgroundExperiment

Mariner 4 to Mars – First successful flyby 60 years ago https://www.byteseu.com/1194685/ #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Cosmology #PlanetaryScience #Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology

Scientists detect biggest ever merger of two massive black holes https://www.byteseu.com/1192756/ #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Cosmology #PlanetaryScience #Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology

https://www.europesays.com/uk/263568/ Astronomers Detect a Black Hole Merger That’s So Massive It Shouldn’t Exist #Astrophysics #BlackHoles #Cosmology #GravitationalWave #LIGO #Science #Space #UK #UnitedKingdom

https://www.europesays.com/us/63688/ Astronomers Detect a Black Hole Merger That’s So Massive It Shouldn’t Exist #Astrophysics #BlackHoles #Cosmology #GravitationalWave #LIGO #Science #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US

My Best Recent Moon Photos! https://www.byteseu.com/1190587/ #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Cosmology #PlanetaryScience #Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology

"Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail."

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-biggest-ever-digital-camera-is-this-cosmologists-magnum-opus-20250711/

#RubinObservatory #Cameras #CCDs #Cosmology #Space #Astronomy #DarkMatter #DarkEnergy

#TheoryOfEverything #Physics #Cosmology #Science #QuantumPhysics #Spacetime #NewScience

Exploring a new model for a Theory of Everything where properties like mass and spin emerge from a resonating fundamental field in a discrete vacuum. What are your initial impressions of this framework?

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15682484

https://www.academia.edu/130193526/Scalar_Field_as_Dark_Component_in_HLV_Theory_and_Symbolic_Grammar_G_HLV_1_

Nearly everyone opposes Trump’s plan to kill space traffic control program | The Space Force and more than 450 aerospace companies are against the White House’s proposal. https://www.byteseu.com/1182804/ #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Cosmology #PlanetaryScience #Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology

US cancels $900 million #cosmology project cuz the oil lords and oligarchs need their tax cut.

https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-abandons-hunt-signal-cosmic-inflation

#TheoryOfEverything #Physics #Cosmology #Science #QuantumPhysics #Spacetime #NewScience

Exploring a new model for a Theory of Everything where properties like mass and spin emerge from a resonating fundamental field in a discrete vacuum. What are your initial impressions of this framework?
Theory:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15851544

#Mantis was very central to the #cosmology of the Southern San /Xam people, a form of #trickster and guardian of the game /Kaggen. Recently some new rock art from /Xam country is believed to show the Mantis and his friends.

A big grey variety of mantis also figures in #Hadza story...

#huntergatherers #Africa #myth #ritual

#Cosmology

Is Earth inside a huge void? Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) – the “sound of the Big Bang” – hint so

https://www.ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/earth-inside-huge-void-sound-big-bang-hints-so

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The Vera Rubin Ridge on Mars
The Asteroid 5726 Rubin
The Nvidia Rubin Superchip
The Vera Rubin's U.S. Quarter
The Vera Rubin Memorial Fund
The Vera Rubin Early Career Prize

Things Named After Carnegie Astronomer Vera Rubin

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/things-named-after-carnegie-astronomer-vera-rubin

#VeraRubin #Rubin #RubinObservatory #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrodon #Cosmology #DarkMatter #Mars #Asteroid #science #Carnegy #CarnegyScience #Nvidia #computing #physics

Portrait of a galaxy cluster

A massive, spacetime-warping cluster of galaxies, Abell 209, is the setting of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Postman, P. Kelly
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2527a/

#Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrodon #science #galaxies #galaxycluster #Hubble #HST #Abell209 #astrophotography

According to the Church of the #Subgenius, today is X-Day, the day the aliens arrive to take all Subgeniuses away on their pleasure saucers leaving the Pinks and the #Conspiracy behind https://toilet-guru.com/overview-faith.html?s=mb #cosmology #eschaton #apocalypse

According to the Church of the #Subgenius, today is X-Day, the day the aliens arrive to take all Subgeniuses away on their pleasure saucers leaving the Pinks and the #Conspiracy behind https://toilet-guru.com/overview-faith.html?s=mb #cosmology #eschaton #apocalypse