Cosmology

ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2010) - A team of physicists from the University of Toronto and Rutgers University has mimicked a supernova -- an explosion of a star -- in miniature.

It looks like physics works differently in different places. If so, everything we think we know about the cosmos may be wrong

Researchers at Fermilab are building a "holometer" so they can disprove everything you thought you knew about the universe. More specifically, they are trying to either prove or disprove the somewhat mind-bending notion that the third dimension doesn't exist at all, and that the 3-D universe we think we live in is nothing more than a hologram. To do so, they are building the most precise clock ever created.

Astronomers' new observations have spotted the most distant galaxy ever seen. The galaxy's light comes from about 13.1 billion light-years away, making it one of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum,  is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.     Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History  http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/universe/    Visualization Software:  Uniview by SCISS    Director: Carter Emmart  Curator: Ben R. Oppenheimer  Producer: Michael Hoffman  Executive Producer: Ro Kinzler  Co-Executive Producer: Martin Brauen  Manager, Digital Universe Atlas: Brian Abbott    Music: Suke Cerulo    For more information visit http://www.amnh.org

A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution has announced the discovery of a planet, Gliese 581g,

"LONDON, Sep. 2, 2010 (Reuters) - God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book."

newscientist.com - A shape-shifting fifth fundamental force could neatly explain the mystery of dark energy and some other puzzling astronomical observations

Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory - inspired by pencil lead - that could make it all very simple

Claims that there is something wrong with our standard model of the universe rest on flawed logic, say Andrew Pontzen and Hiranya Peiris

A small change to the theory of gravity implies that our universe inherited its arrow of time from the black hole in which it was born.