9 D Universe

Gigantic black holes lurk at the center of virtually every galaxy, including ours, but we've lacked a precise picture of what impact they have on their surroundings. However, a University of Chicago-led group of scientists has used data from a recently launched satellite to reveal our clearest look yet into [...]

Astronomers have created the most detailed map to date of the vast structures of dark matter that appear to permeate the universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the team, led by Diana Scognamiglio at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, used gravitational lensing to map the dark matter filaments and [...]

Some 20 papers from researchers based in North America have been recognized with a Top Cited Paper award for 2025 from IOP Publishing, which publishes Physics World. The prize is given to corresponding authors who have papers published in both IOP Publishing and its partners’ journals from 2022 to 2024 that are in the [...]

The facts seem simple enough. In 1957 Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee won the Nobel Prize for Physics “for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles”. The idea that parity is violated shocked physicists, who had previously assumed that every [...]

The facts seem simple enough. In 1957 Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee won the Nobel Prize for Physics “for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles”. The idea that parity is violated shocked physicists, who had previously assumed that every [...]

Cancer treatments using heavy ions offer several key advantages over conventional proton therapy: a sharper Bragg peak and small lateral scattering for precision tumour targeting, as well as high linear energy transfer (LET). High-LET radiation induces complex DNA damage in cancer cells, enabling effective treatment of even hypoxic, radioresistant tumours. [...]

The light from MoM-z14 galaxy has been traveling through space for about 13.5 billion years. Rohan Naidu, Pappalardo Fellowships in Physics, astrophysics, NASA Hubble Fellow https://gizmodo.com/the-age-of-the-most-distant-galaxy-ever-seen-barely-makes-any-sense-2000715503 The post The Age of the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen Barely Makes Any Sense appeared first on MIT Physics. [...]

Most near-Earth asteroids are thought to drift in from the main asteroid belt. But a small subset may have a much closer origin: the moon. One intriguing example is 469219 Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), an Earth quasi-satellite whose reported spectrum resembles lunar material and which is a target of China's Tianwen-2 [...]

A Sydney Ph.D. student has recreated a tiny piece of the universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed. Linda Losurdo, a Ph.D. candidate in materials [...]

Condensed-matter physics and materials science have a silo problem. Although researchers in these fields have access to vast amounts of data – from experimental records of crystal structures and conditions for synthesizing specific materials to theoretical calculations of electron band structures and topological properties – these datasets are often fragmented. [...]

For any company or business, it’s important to recognize and protect intellectual property (IP). In the case of novel inventions, which can include machines, processes and even medicines, a patent offers IP protection and lets firms control how those inventions are used. Patents, which in most countries can be granted [...]

Author(s): Vittorio SomàCalculations show how the mysterious “magic numbers” that stabilize nuclear structures emerge naturally from nuclear forces—once these are described with appropriate spatial resolution.[Physics 19, 11] Published Mon Feb 02, 2026 [...]

Can scenarios inspired by science fiction help anticipate the effects of future technologies?[Physics 19, 15] Published Mon Feb 02, 2026 [...]

Deep in the frozen heart of Antarctica, the South Pole Telescope has been watching one of the most extreme neighborhoods in our galaxy, and it's just caught something extraordinary happening there. Astronomers have detected powerful stellar flares erupting from stars near the supermassive black hole at the center of the [...]

Dr. Leonardos Gkouvelis, researcher at LMU's University Observatory Munich and member of the ORIGINS Excellence Cluster, has solved a fundamental mathematical problem that had obstructed the interpretation of exoplanet atmospheres for decades. In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, Gkouvelis presents the first closed-form analytical theory of transmission spectroscopy [...]

Vol. 70610. Planets, planetary systems, and small bodies Pre-perihelion evolution of the NiI/FeI abundance ratio in the coma of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS: From extreme to normal by Damien Hutsemékers, Jean Manfroid, Emmanuël Jehin, et al. 2026, A&A, 706, A43 Discovered on July 1, 2025, and with prediscovery observations in June, 3I/Atlas [...]

Author(s): Michael SchirberUsing a camera with 2-picosecond time resolution, researchers show that the atoms in a laser-induced plasma are more highly ionized than theory predicts.[Physics 19, 13] Published Fri Jan 30, 2026 [...]

By leveraging excess heat instead of electricity, microscopic silicon structures could enable more energy-efficient thermal sensing and signal processing. MIT researchers have designed silicon structures that can perform calculations in an electronic device using excess heat instead of electricity. These tiny structures could someday enable more energy-efficient computation. In this computing [...]

New simulations performed on a NASA supercomputer are providing scientists with the most comprehensive look yet into the maelstrom of interacting magnetic structures around city-sized neutron stars in the moments before they crash. The team identified potential signals emitted during the stars' final moments that may be detectable by future [...]

A UBC Okanagan-led research project has given a group of international scientists their clearest view yet of the Milky Way's magnetic field, revealing that it is far more complex than previously believed. [...]

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonAn analysis of a record-breaking gravitational-wave detection tests whether general relativity holds under extreme conditions.[Physics 19, s2] Published Thu Jan 29, 2026 [...]

Author(s): Xiang Zhan and Peng XueEntanglement and so-called magic states have long been viewed as the key resources for quantum error correction. Now contextuality, a hallmark of quantum theory, joins them as a complementary resource.[Physics 19, 9] Published Wed Jan 28, 2026 [...]

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonLight grazing an ultrathin conductive film can be absorbed much more strongly than previously thought.[Physics 19, s13] Published Wed Jan 28, 2026 [...]

MIT physicists observed the first clear evidence that quarks create a wake as they speed through quark-gluon plasma, confirming the plasma behaves like a liquid. In its first moments, the infant universe was a trillion-degree-hot soup of quarks and gluons. These elementary particles zinged around at light speed, creating a “quark-gluon [...]

Vol. 7054. Extragalactic astronomy Investigating the growth of little red dot descendants at z [...]

Author(s): David EhrensteinThe melting point of alkali-metal nanoparticles was determined with high accuracy by measuring the energy required to eject electrons from the particles.[Physics 19, s18] Published Tue Jan 27, 2026 [...]

MIT physicist shares 400,000-euro award for influential work on “magic-angle” graphene. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT, has won the 2025 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences for “discoveries concerning the ‘magic angle’ that allows the behavior of new materials to be [...]

Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has some physicists wondering if we just spotted one. Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes David KaiserThe post Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger [...]

Vol. 7052. Astrophysical processes Fast and "lossless" propagation of relativistic electrons along magnetized nonthermal filaments in galaxy clusters and the Galactic Center region by Eugene Churazov, Lawrence Rudnick, Ildar Khabibullin, Marisa Brienza, Alex Schekochihin, Dmitri Uzdensky 2026, A&A, 705, A184 [...]

For nearly a decade, the MIT Warrior-Scholar Project STEM boot camp has helped enlisted members of the military prepare for higher education. “I went into the military right after high school, mostly because I didn’t really see the value of academics,” says Air Force veteran and MIT sophomore Justin Cole. His perspective [...]

The MIT Kavli Institute is proud to announce that Anna Frebel, Professor of Physics and Division Head for Astrophysics, has been selected for the 2026 Digital Science Communication Fellowship, an elite national program as part of the Museum of Science’s Global Science Creator Network, dedicated to strengthening scientific communication and [...]

Nuno Loureiro, a professor of nuclear science and engineering and of physics at MIT, has died. He was 47.In a letter to the MIT community, President Sally Kornbluth wrote, “With great sadness, I write to share the tragic news that Professor Nuno Loureiro, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion [...]

Some 200 light years from Earth, the core of a dead star is circling a larger star in a macabre cosmic dance. The dead star is a type of white dwarf that exerts a powerful magnetic field as it pulls material from the larger star into a swirling, accreting disk. [...]

MIT researchers recently studied a region of space called the Taurus Molecular Cloud-1 (TMC-1) and discovered more than 100 different molecules floating in the gas there — more than in any other known interstellar cloud. They used powerful radio telescopes capable of detecting very faint signals across a wide range [...]

Alan Robert Whitney ’66, SM ’67, PhD ’74, a longtime research scientist at the MIT Haystack Observatory who also served its associate director and interim director, died on Sept. 28 at age 81.Whitney was a key contributor to the accomplishments and reputation of Haystack Observatory, having led the development of [...]

For centuries, humans have sought to study the stars and celestial bodies, whether through observations made by naked eye or by telescopes on the ground and in space that can view the universe across nearly the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Each view unlocks new information about the denizens of space — [...]

The following article is adapted from a joint press release issued today by MIT and the Giant Magellan Telescope.MIT is lending its support to the Giant Magellan Telescope, joining the international consortium to advance the $2.6 billion observatory in Chile. The Institute’s participation, enabled by a transformational gift from philanthropists Phillip [...]

The last gasp of a primordial black hole may be the source of the highest-energy “ghost particle” detected to date, a new MIT study proposes.In a paper appearing today in Physical Review Letters, MIT physicists put forth a strong theoretical case that a recently observed, highly energetic neutrino may have [...]