9 D Universe

The British-American theoretical physicist Anthony Leggett died on 8 March at the age of 87. Leggett shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics with Alexei Abrikosov and Vitaly Ginzburg for their “pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluidity”. Born on 26 March 1938 in London, UK, Leggett graduated in literae [...]

Imagine all the different ways you can rearrange a list of labelled items. If you know only a tiny fraction of the labels describing the elements of the list, it’s easy to assume you have almost no information about the order of the list as a whole under permutations. After [...]

A new of way of searching for dark-matter candidate particles called axions has produced the tightest constraint yet on how they can interact with normal matter. Using a two-city network of quantum sensors based on nuclear spins, physicists in China narrowed the possible values of a parameter known as axion-nucleon [...]

A. Neil Pappalardo ‘64, co-founder of MEDITECH (Medical Information Technology, Inc.) and a leading supporter of the MIT Department of Physics for decades, died on January 27, 2026, at age 83. He leaves behind his wife of 61 years, Jane; their four children; and 13 grandchildren. A. Neil Pappalardo ’64 (1942-2026) Credit: [...]

Careers in Quantum, which was held on 5 March 2026, is an unusual event. Now in its seventh year, it’s entirely organised by PhD students who are part of the Quantum Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) at the University of Bristol in the UK. As well as giving them valuable [...]

In vivo imaging T2-weighted MRI of three healthy volunteers (left to right columns) using the bend-MTMA and bend-loop antennas reveals increased intraocular signal for the metamaterial-based bend-MTMA configuration. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Advanced Materials 10.1002/adma.202517760) MRI is one of the most important imaging tools employed in medical diagnostics. But for deep-lying tissues [...]

A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests that stellar "space weather" could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting planet can broaden an otherwise ultra-narrow signal, spreading its power across more frequencies and making it more difficult [...]

Humans are generating more data than ever before. While much of these data do not need to be stored long-term, some – such as scientific and historical records – would ideally still be retrievable in decades, or even centuries. The problem is that modern digital archive systems such as hard [...]

The latest crop of space-time wobbles includes a variety of heavy, fast-spinning, and lopsided colliding black holes. When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off ripples, in the form of gravitational waves, that reverberate across space and time, over hundreds of millions and even billions [...]

“Surround sound for biological cells,” is how Luke Cox describes the ultrasound technology that Impulsonics has developed to solve the “unsticking problem” in biomedical science. Cox is co-founder and chief executive of UK-based Impulsonics, which spun-out of the University of Bristol in 2023. He is also my guest in this episode [...]

Senior engineer Badri Ratnam has enhanced his education and career with 40 courses offered by MITx at MIT Open Learning. As a professional mechanical engineer, Badri Ratnam was inspired when MIT started offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) in engineering and science in 2012. He wondered if he was up to [...]

When most people think of a supernova, they're thinking of a Type II core-collapse supernova. These are massive stars that have reached the end of their time on the main sequence. They've used up their supply of hydrogen and continue fusing heavier elements until the star can't support its own [...]

Vol. 7063. Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies) A sub-ppm upper limit on the cosmological variations of the fine structure constant α by S. Muller, A. Beelen, M. Guélin, et al. 2026, A&A, 706, A365 Using molecular lines toward two lensed quasars at different, moderate redshifts, the paper presents the most stringent limits to [...]

When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off ripples, in the form of gravitational waves, that reverberate across space and time, over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. By the time they pass through Earth, such cosmic ripples are barely discernible.And yet, [...]

Author(s): Charles DayA coordinate transformation devised for an expanding universe leads to new insights into how a collapsing protogalaxy acquires a large magnetic field.[Physics 19, s26] Published Thu Mar 05, 2026 [...]

Author(s): Matteo RiniWith the debut of a public alert stream, the Rubin Observatory demonstrates the ability to report transient signals—from supernovae, variable stars, active galactic nuclei and asteroids—in near real time.[Physics 19, 31] Published Thu Mar 05, 2026 [...]

Author(s): Sophia ChenElectrons accelerated to relativistic speeds in a dielectric material can produce bursts of x rays, similar to a phenomenon found in thunderstorms.[Physics 19, s24] Published Thu Mar 05, 2026 [...]

Astronomers with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) have used data from the project to make the largest, most accurate 3D map yet of the light emitted by excited hydrogen in the early universe, 9 billion to 11 billion years ago. This specific form of light, called Lyman alpha, [...]

Vol. 7079. The Sun and the Heliosphere Three-dimensional mapping of coronal magnetic field and plasma parameters in a solar flare by Tatyana Kaltman, Sijie Yu, Gregory D. Fleishman, Daniel F. Ryan 2026, A&A, 707, A158 The study presents reconstructed 3D maps of the magnetic field strength, Alfvén speed, and plasma beta in [...]