Cosmic rays are particles from outer space that continually bombard the Earth. The nature and origin of cosmic rays with energies below 1015 eV are well understood. However, physicists have no idea of...
Although scientists have known about gamma-ray bursts since 1967, no one has come up with a feasible explanation of why they occur. The explosions may be caused by the collision of super-dense neutron...
All of the other research councils will get increases of at least 3%, with the Medical Research Council receiving a rise of 6.8%. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will ge...
There are a number of reasons why GRB980425 is associated with SN1998bw. Both occurred at the same time, at the same location and in the same direction as each other. SN1998bw is also a rare Type Ib/c...
Quasar jets are streams of plasma that travel at near the speed of light from supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. The jets appear at radio wavelengths, but can also be detected in the ...
Gilbert Collins and colleagues used the NOVA laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to carry out the experiments (Science 281 1178). The deuterium was placed in a small copp...
Speculation on the origin of high energy cosmic rays has existed for some time. The best candidates are massive supernova explosions or the decay of superheavy particles near the beginning of the univ...
Neutrinos come in three types – electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos – and only interact very weakly with matter, which makes them extremely difficult to detect. Neutrino d...
The known universe consists almost entirely of matter. However, it is thought that equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created during the big bang. One possibility is that this antimatter now ...
The 50 second burst, known as GRB971214, was detected by the two satellites. The Italian/Dutch BeppoSAX satellite gave the precise position of the blast, while NASA’s Compton Gamma Ray Observato...