According to the standard model of cosmology, that expansion rate should be the same no matter how you measure it. But in recent years, scientists have found that the expansion rate of the early universe and that of the more recent universe vary by approximately 9 percent. That discrepancy, or tension, “has provoked heated debates
The field of view of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (artist’s illustration) will be roughly 100 times bigger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Handout via Reuters The largest infrared digital camera ever built and its scientific companion, a massive mirror originally designed for a spy satellite, are now safely in orbit,
The new Nancy Grace Roman telescope is similarly expected to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe, including through investigating dark energy. It has a five-year primary lifespan with a goal to operate for 10 years. Nasa says the telescope’s “crisp, sweeping surveys will help scientists investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover and characterise exoplanets,
When the Forest Breathes Suzanne Simard Knopf (2026) In 2015, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard established the Mother Tree Project in British Columbia, Canada, funded by the country’s federal government. Now, Simard and her team, aided by local Indigenous people, have planted 225,000 trees across an area as large as Denmark, including in both the province’s
One of the most enduring mysteries that has been puzzling scientists forever is how the Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – is millions of degrees hotter than its surface. And how does the corona continue to remain so hot despite frequent eruptions during which it loses huge amounts of energy? Astrophysicists in India now
Solar prominences protruding from the Sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse in Dallas in 2024.Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber When the Moon blocks the Sun over Greenland, Iceland and Spain on 12 August, researchers will get roughly two minutes to study the solar corona, the Sun’s outermost layer, which is only visible to the naked eye
