Artist’s rendering of a distant planet with a helium-rich atmosphere. A new study explains how these types of planets can be very common and why. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech For centuries no one knew if we were alone in the universe or if there were even other planets like ours. But thanks to new telescopes and methods …
Many planets may have helium-rich atmospheres, study finds Read More »
Physicists have long struggled to explain why the Universe began with conditions conducive to the evolution of life. Why do physical laws and constants take on very specific values that allow stars, planets, and ultimately life to develop? The expanding force of the Universe, dark energy, for example, is much weaker than theory suggests – …
An expert offers a method to find out if we all live in a computer program Read More »
According to the standard model of particle physics, the universe is governed by four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force and gravity. While the first three are described by quantum mechanics, gravity is described by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Surprisingly, gravity is the one that presents the greatest challenges …
Einstein’s predictions for gravity have been tested on the largest possible scale Read More »
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 public domain Astrophysicists from RUDN University have collected the most important discoveries of modern cosmology from 1917 to the present day. The collected data became an introduction to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A in two parts: from 1917 to 1980 and from 1980 to the present day. Cosmology, the science of …
Astrophysicists tell the story of mathematical cosmology Read More »
