Researchers have recreated #plasma that is thought to have existed during the #BigBang, when the #universe was formed. - http://clapway.com/2015/09/06/plasma-big-bang123/

Researchers at the University of Kansas, working in conjunction with an international team at the Large Hadron Collider, have managed to recreate a state of matter thought to have existed at the birth of the universe around 13.8 billion years ago. The small amount of quark-gluon plasma, dubbed “littlest liquid,” was discovered through a series of high-energy particle collisions conducted inside the supercollider’s Compact Muon Solenoid Detector, according to Science World Report.

The plasma, or QGP, is described as a “perfect liquid,” hypothesized to exist at extreme temperatures or densities most likely characteristic of the early stages of universal expansion. It can subsist for a short period of time before cooling and condensing into regular matter that forms the building blocks of life.

For some time now, physicists have been aware of the existence of QGP. In an effort to learn more about this “primordial state of matter,” experiments of a similar nature have been conducted in the past by colliding protons with lead ions. The procedure lead to the discovery of the same plasma back in 2013; however, results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), located in Upton, New York, now reveal that the “littlest liquid” also appears after colliding gold ions with helium-3 nuclei, reports Discovery News.

This is the first time that helium-3, a light ion, has been collided with heavy ions (in this case, gold). The successful collision reveals that quark-gluon plasma can be produced at lower energies than previously thought.

According to Berndt Mueller, Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics at Brookhaven, “Physicists initially thought that only the nuclei of large atoms such as gold would have enough matter and energy to set free the quark and gluon building blocks that make up protons and neutrons. But the flow patterns detected by RHIC’s PHENIX (Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment) collaboration in collisions of helium-3 nuclei with gold ions now confirm that these smaller particles are creating tiny samples of perfect liquid QGP.”

The results of the experiment yield important data for scientists seeking to understand the atmospheric conditions that were present during the Big Bang. The study is published in APS Physics.

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Plasma Present During The Big Bang Is Recreated

According to Inflationary #Universe theory, the early universe expanded at an #exponentialrate for the first fraction of a second following the #BigBang. - http://clapway.com/2015/08/30/universe-expanding-120/

The life of the cosmos is a subject of heated debate and fervent speculation for scientists, astronomers, cosmologists and astrophysicists. How did it begin? How did it evolve? How did it assume its current shape and behavior? How will it end? Presently, the most likely theory to appeal to for answers is what’s known as the Inflationary Universe theory. According to it, the early universe expanded at an exponential rate for the first few fractions of a second following the Big Bang.

This theory was put forward in 1981 by cosmologists in order to solve various problems in their own field.

PROBLEMS WITH INFLATION THEORY

One such problem is called the horizon problem. If we follow this theory’s logic, but assume that the Universe is not expanding, and that two photons simultaneously depart from the same point, one aimed at the Earth’s North Pole, and the other aimed at the Earth’s South Pole. The logic goes that, since these two particles could not exchange any information from the time released, the time required to send information from one photon to the other would be twice the age of the cosmos.

These photons in are causally disconnected; they cannot penetrate one another’s horizon.

But this can’t be, since we have already observed photons approaching from opposite directions that must have somehow communicated, since the cosmic microwave background radiation is nearly homogeneous, i.e. unchanging across different sectors of the night sky.

HOW DO WE SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

We can solve this problem by assuming that the universe expanded exponentially at its earliest beginnings, shortly after the Big Bang. Before this happened, the whole of the cosmos was in causal contact, and at equilibrium with a common, homogeneous temperature. This means that sectors of the universe that are widely separated today were once extremely close together, which explains why photons from these disparate and distant regions have the same temperatures.

AN ANALOGY

To visualize cosmic inflation, imagine the inflation of a balloon. One person at any point on the balloon may think they are at the center of expansion, since each and every neighboring point appears to move farther away as the surface of the balloon extends from the interior pressure.

For more on the universe’s beginnings, cosmic inflation and quantum fluctuations, check out Stephen Hawking’s Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

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The Universe is Expanding

#ALMA has given us the ability to peer #BackInTime and learn about the #origins of the #universe. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/22/galaxies-800-million-years-after-big-bang-limned-by-alma-112/

We all know about the Big Bang, but the formation of the first galaxies has always been a mystery to scientists, until now. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, scientists have gained the ability to peer into the depths of foggy beginnings, when hydrogen gas was just starting to collect and condense into galaxies, in the first several hundred million years following the Big Bang.

ALMA TELESCOPE IS NOT A TIME MACHINE

The thing about light is that it doesn’t travel instantaneously. Travelling at about 300 million meters per second, even the darkest patches of the sky are filled with light that’s travelled so far that it actually outlived the object it originated from. This scientific fact is why the Sun as we know it from the Earth’s surface is actually the Sun as it appeared approximately 8 minutes ago.

ALMA TELESCOPE IS A TIME MACHINE

Recently, astronomers using ALMA peered far enough back in time that they were able to view galaxies existing 800 million years after the Big Bang. Ironically, this was only made possible by the light of glowing ionized carbon, emitted from the gaseous clouds giving birth to stars.

One of these early galaxies named BDF 3299 was specifically recognized by the clear signal of glowing carbon emitting from one side of the ancient galaxy.

QUALIFYING ALMA’S FINDINGS

“This is the most distant detection ever of this kind of emission from a ‘normal galaxy (sic), seen less than one billion years after the Big Bang,” exclaimed Andrea Ferrara, co-author of these new findings. “It gives us the opportunity to watch the build-up of the first galaxies. For the first time we are seeing early galaxies not merely as tiny blobs, but as objects with internal structure!”

The reason for the above mentioned galaxies’ glowing side is that the normally brighter central clouds are being disrupted by the chaotic environment surrounding freshly born stars. Additionally, the carbon’s glow is actually tracing new, cold gas on its way into the stars from intergalactic space, and then the light is sent back out on its long journey to the ALMA’s dishes.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

Ferrara explains further, “We have been trying to understand the interstellar medium and the formation of the re-ionization sources for many years…[f]inally to be able to test predictions and hypotheses on real data from ALMA is an exciting moment and opens up a new set of questions. This type of observation will clarify many of the thorny problems we have with the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the universe.”

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Galaxies 800 Million Years After Big Bang Limned By ALMA

Too Big for Home: A Black Hole Story - http://clapway.com/2015/07/10/too-big-for-home-a-black-hole-story678/

Black hole outgrows its home galaxy

Space news has been pretty eventful lately but some new findings might take the weirdness of recent space events to a new level. The new piece of research that was published today in the Science journal may put a lot of what was known about black holes in a fog.

The story of the black hole being too large for home only 2 billion years after the Big Bang has many in the science community stupefied. Prior to this publication, the science world was led to believe that black holes and galaxies grew at the same time. However, this newly discovered black hole has outgrown the galaxy. Even more startling is the fact that the galaxy continues to grow despite the presence of the black hole’s enormity. An astrophysics professor from the group of researchers that was part of the study has stated that it was only meant to study less exciting things, not a completely never-before-seen phenomenon such as this black hole. The find surprised them and the rest of the science community.

this massive black hole is the largest one ever seen

To date, this black hole is the biggest one scientists have ever found. In comparison to our home star, the Sun, the solar mass of this monster is seven billion times as large. It’s basically the same as the ratio of the entire human population of Earth to you, one person.

What does this mean for us and for space science?

As mentioned previously, this new finding on the black hole earlier in galactic time has scientists scratching their head at the contradictory nature. It is contradictory because it means have to rethink what we know about the universe and the fact that the galaxy the black hole is in continues to grow despite it being there. It’s kind of like a stationary tornado is going on and a whole metropolitan city continuing to be built in the nearby vicinity, despite the threat.

A Jurassic Park quote seems appropriate here, the sentiment that “Life finds a way” being quite applicable to this new discovery.

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Too Big for Home: A Black Hole Story

NASA telescope detects strange gamma rays — mystery of anti-matter explained? - http://clapway.com/2015/05/16/nasa-telescope-detects-strange-gamma-rays-mystery-of-anti-matter-explained123/

Ever since the concept of “matter” was introduced to our understanding, scientists and enthusiasts alike have been hindered by the mystery surrounding anti-matter. Based on existing theories, the Big Bang would have presumably produced both matter and anti-matter in entirely equal amounts. In this scenario, they would have instantly canceled each other out. In the end, matter “won” in the universe, creating all that exists to the human eye today. Recently, however, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has picked up bizarre high-energy light that could explain how matter ultimately overpowered anti-matter.

 

The telescope discovery shows signs of a critical magnetic field

To delve into these tensions between matter and anti-matter, we have to examine the evidence. Many scientists claim unequivocally that the universe contained equal amounts of both matter and anti-matter (with equal yet opposing charges) since its conception. Currently, the presence of anti-matter is diminished, and the true mystery that lingers searches for a precise explanation as to why matter dominated — and why it even exists — in the universe.

The specific gamma light rays that the Fermi telescope distinguished took on a spiral-shaped imprint, informing researchers that they most probably sprung from a magnetic field that had formed nanoseconds after the Big Bang. They speculate that within this magnetic field lies the evidence that the amount of matter truly surpasses that of anti-matter.

Tanmay Vachaspati, a physics professor at Arizona State University and the leader of this research, has found that properties identified in the gamma ray data indicate an extremely large production of matter over anti-matter in our early universe. Further analysis of the ray’s imprints showed that the magnetic field is primarily left-handed. This is especially significant, since anti-matter would have largely produced fields of a right-hand orientation.

If correct, magnetic field theory could lead to more finds on anti-matter

Despite the great feasibility of this explanation, there remains the slightest margin of error. The next step would be to gather even more data given by the Fermi telescope, and extract additional signs that indicate the solid presence matter, and to prove the correlation between matter and the magnetic field, as well as the near-absolute nonexistence of anti-matter in the field.

NASA telescope detects strange gamma rays — mystery of anti-matter explained?