news

Astronomy - 29.05
Pebbles help explain Mars’ watery past
The discovery of sand and pebbles that have turned to rock has provided the most definitive proof yet of ancient water flow on the Mars. - Professor Gupta in the video slide show talks about the mission to date and describes the importance of this latest discovery.

Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 16.05
New study assesses glacier contributions to sea level rise
Melting glaciers account for one third of observed sea level rise, according to a new study published today in Science. - The research - which used multiple satellites and an extensive collection of ground data - was led by Professor Alex Gardner of Clark University and involved the efforts of 16 researchers from 10 countries, including Dr Bert Wouters from the University of Bristol.

Astronomy - 8.05
Join the search for 'space warps'
Online volunteers are being asked to search for 'space warps', very rare massive galaxies that bend light around them so that they act rather like giant lenses in space. By looking through data that has never been seen by human eyes, citizen scientists can help astronomers discover some of the rarest objects in the Universe.

Astronomy - 3.05
Herschel bows out with study that shows early galaxies ’cooler’ than predicted
Herschel bows out with study that shows early galaxies 'cooler' than predicted - Physicists analysing observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have shown that galaxies in the early Universe were cooler than those we see around us today.

Physics/Material Science - Astronomy - 27.04
New matter-antimatter difference
27 Apr 2013 - A subtle difference between matter and antimatter has been observed for the first time by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Astronomy - 18.04
Astrophysicists discover earliest known ’starburst’ galaxy in Universe
Astrophysicists discover earliest known 'starburst' galaxy in Universe - University of Sussex astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory are part of an international team that has discovered a distant star-forming galaxy that challenges the current theories of galaxy evolution.

Astronomy - 27.03
Summer melt season is getting longer on the Antarctic Peninsula, new research shows
New research from the Antarctic Peninsula published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that the summer melt season has been getting longer over the last 60 years. - Dr Nick Barrand from the University of Birmingham led an analysis of data from 30 weather stations on the Antarctic Peninsula – a mountainous region extending northwards towards South America.

Astronomy - 21.03
Challenging our understanding of the Universe
The European Space Agency's Planck mission with the support of University astronomers has compiled the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background (the relic radiation from the Big Bang).

Astronomy - 21.03
Space telescope challenges understanding of the Universe
Europe's Planck space telescope, which University of Manchester scientists at the Jodrell Bank Observatory helped build, has compiled the most detailed map of the post-Big Bang Universe ever recorded and thrown up anomalies that current physics cannot yet explain.

Astronomy - Chemistry - 11.03
Beyond the blinding starlight
Study reveals chemical composites of exoplanet atmospheres 128 light years away. Scientists say techniques will "one day provide evidence of life beyond Earth". - The really exciting thing is that, one day, the techniques we've developed will give us our first secure evidence of the existence of life on a planet outside our solar system - Ian Parry - Astronomers have conducted the first remote reconnaissance of a distant solar system, using new telescope imaging techniques to reveal the chemical composition of exoplanets orbiting a star 128 light years from Earth.

Physics/Material Science - Astronomy - 7.03
The Liverpool View: Did we discover a Higgs?
July 4th, 2012 – a landmark, red-letter day in a physicist's calendar. It was the day that CERN webcast a special seminar of the latest results from the Large Hadron Collider. It was the day when the world went particle physics mad, celebrating the discovery of the long sought and long elusive Higgs boson.

Physics/Material Science - Astronomy - 7.02
New Sussex study furthers Einstein’s ’theory of everything’
Sussex physicists have taken a small step towards fulfilling Einstein's dream of proving there is only one fundamental force in nature. - Following last year's discovery of the Higgs boson particle – the so-called “God particle” that answers how the particles have masses - Xavier Calmet and PhD student Michael Atkins looked at how the Higgs field interacts with gravity.

Astronomy - Physics/Material Science - 31.01
Gas promises bumper black hole 'weigh-in'
A new way of measuring the mass of supermassive black holes could revolutionise our understanding of how they form and help to shape galaxies. - The technique, developed by a team including Oxford University scientists, can spot the telltale tracer of carbon monoxide within the cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen) circling a supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy.

Astronomy - Physics/Material Science - 25.01
Chameleon pulsar baffles astronomers
Using a satellite X-ray telescope combined with terrestrial radio telescopes the pulsar was found to flip on a roughly half-hour timescale between two extreme states; one dominated by X-ray pulses, the other by a highly-organised pattern of radio pulses.

Astronomy - 7.01
'Traffic jam' of moons in habitable zone
Volunteers from the Planethunters.org website, part of the Oxford University-led Zooniverse project, have discovered 15 new planet candidates orbiting in the habitable zones of other stars. - Added to the 19 similar planets already discovered in habitable zones, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, the new finds suggest that there may be a 'traffic jam' of all kinds of strange worlds in regions that could potentially support life.