9 D Universe

On 26 April 2026, it will be 40 years since the explosion at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant – the worst nuclear accident the world has known. In the early hours of 26 April 1986, a badly designed reactor, operated under intense pressure during a safety test, [...]

Some of the universe's most extreme explosions leave behind almost no trace. The original explosion is unseen, but our observations can capture the long-lived echo it leaves behind as the shock front plows into its surrounding environment. In new research accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, we have discovered [...]

Reactions ranged from disappointment to enthusiasm On Feb. 18, MIT faculty gathered in Huntington Hall (10-250) for the first faculty meeting of 2026, where they discussed the recent proposal released by the Task Force on the Undergraduate Academic Program (TFUAP). The set of recommendations, made public on Feb. 5, outlines sweeping [...]

Later this year, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its huge experiments will shutdown for the High Luminosity upgrade. When complete in 2030, the particle-collision rate in the LHC will be increased by a factor of 10 and the experiments will be upgraded so that they can better capture and [...]

Quantum computers could solve problems that are out of reach for today’s classical machines. However, the quantum states they rely on are prone to decohering – that is, losing their quantum information due to local noise. One possible way around this is to use quantum bits (qubits) constructed from quasiparticle [...]

Author(s): Sophia ChenA group of physicists are developing a quantum computer that’s entirely open source, from hardware to software[Physics 19, 24] Published Thu Feb 26, 2026 [...]

Researchers in China have distributed device-independent quantum cryptographic keys over city-scale distances for the first time – a significant improvement compared to the previous record of a few hundred metres. Led by Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [...]

Todd McNutt is a radiation oncology physicist at Johns Hopkins University in the US and the co-founder of Oncospace, where he led the development of an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool that simultaneously accelerates radiation planning and elevates plan quality and consistency. The software, now rebranded as Plan AI and available from [...]

In his opening remarks to the 4th International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, Chris Llewellyn Smith – who was a director-general of CERN in the 1990s – suggested participants should speak about “what’s not written in the journals”, including “mistakes, dead-ends and problems with getting funding”. Doing so, [...]

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonContrary to previous suggestions, hydrodynamic interactions impede the clustering of tiny biological and artificial swimmers.[Physics 19, s25] Published Wed Feb 25, 2026 [...]

Attempts to understand quantum phase transitions in open systems usually rely on real‑time Lindbladian evolution, which tracks how a quantum state changes as it relaxes toward a steady state. This approach is powerful for studying decoherence, dissipation and long‑time behaviour, but it often fails to reveal the deeper structure of [...]

Author(s): Charles DayTwo investigations underscore the role of orbital instabilities in accounting for the diversity of planetary systems.[Physics 19, 27] Published Tue Feb 24, 2026 [...]

For the first time, a much younger version of the sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy by astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The bubble—called an "astrosphere"—completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star's surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot [...]

Our solar system hosts almost 900 known moons; more than 400 orbit the eight planets while the remaining orbit dwarf planets, asteroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Of these, only a handful are targets for astrobiology and could potentially support life as we know it, including Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede, [...]

Author(s): Hugo CuiStatistical physics is shedding light on how network architecture and data structure shape the effectiveness of neural-network learning.[Physics 19, 26] Published Mon Feb 23, 2026 [...]