Long ago, billions of years ago, the Universe was covered in darkness. It wasn’t until the first stars began to shine that space became transparent and light flowed. Surprisingly, none of those early stars, known as Population III, have ever been found. Now, astronomers have found the next best thing: A star so chemically depleted … Read more
For decades, Saturn has played a surprising trick on scientists. Depending on how they measured it, the giant planet appeared to be rotating at different speeds, which shouldn’t be the case for a rotating solid body. This surprising discrepancy has challenged planetary physics and raised doubts about how scientists interpret signals from distant worlds. Now, … Read more
A nuclear power plant in the United Kingdom is not expected to be completed until 2040, but experts are already working to reduce maintenance costs and shorten shutdown times. It is part of the STEP – Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production – program implemented by UK Industrial Fusion Solutions. The goal is to unlock nearly … Read more
Dark spots in light waves may appear to disrupt the speed of light, according to new research from scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, confirming the predictions of a half-century-old theory. What the team calls “dark points” are actually vortices – tiny holes in the wave structure of light – as revealed in a … Read more
For more than 20 years, astronomers have been puzzled by the amazing pattern of bright, evenly spaced lines in radio waves from the Crab Pulsar, a dense supernova remnant recorded by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1054. In 2024, an astronomer at the University of Kansas proposed a solution that explains the size of this … Read more
Deep inside every atom is an unstable world of quarks and gluons – the tiny building blocks that hold everything together, from rocks to stars. For decades, physicists have been trying to understand how these particles behave, especially under extreme conditions. “We need to know how these gluons behave in these extreme conditions because gluons … Read more
Your support helps us tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is breaking new ground as the story unfolds. Whether it’s investigating the finances of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest film, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on American women fighting for reproductive rights, … Read more
In the world of quantum physics, amazing events happen at incredible speeds. Processes that are thought to happen instantaneously, such as quantum entanglement, are now measured directly in tiny fractions of a second – attoseconds. It is like spending a short time revealing subtle details hidden in plain sight. Together with a group … Read more
If you’re driving on the back roads of Oakland late at night – and no, we won’t ask why – you might encounter an unexpected sight: a kind-looking old man standing next to a 17-meter-high Tesla coil. If so, don’t worry: it’s actually Greg Leyh, aka Lightning on Demand, testing his terrifying lightning machine again. … Read more
Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), with support from the US Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Army Research Office, have announced a successful breakthrough produced by laser light and manipulating a new state of matter called supersolid at room temperature. The research group … Read more