In the mid-20th century, Carl Sagan pioneered the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the United States, and prominent Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev did the same in the Soviet Union, the other great scientific superpower of the time. From that vantage point, he proposed using an alien civilization’s energy needs as a way to categorize … Read more
For years, physicists have wondered if one unstable form of copper might act like a traffic jam in the universe’s most violent explosions. This question is important because these explosions, called Type IX-ray bursts, are part of the cosmic machinery that helps build heavier elements. In the early universe, hydrogen and helium were dominant. Much … Read more
Physicists studying the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, say a recent experiment may reveal undiscovered physics that casts doubt on the Standard Model. The Standard Model, considered the dominant framework of modern physics for more than half a century, is now faced with intriguing hints from LHC experiments that suggest … Read more