While almost the complete inverse of astronomy and cosmology, fields concerned with the largest objects in our universe, particle physics aims to answer similar questions but from a different vantage. Matthew Citron discusses how particle physicists like himself use particle accelerators to search for dark matter.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have made a surprising discovery about a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away: It isn’t rotating. That’s something only seen in the most massive, mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time, said Ben Forrest, a research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper published May 4 in Nature Astronomy. 

Light pollution dampens our view of the stars, hindering our connection to the universe above. It’s one of the reasons why astronomical observatories are erected in remote, often pristine, places. The opportunity to travel to such places drew Lori Lubin to astronomy.

When researchers glimpsed the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope, humanity’s largest and most powerful space telescope, they noticed something peculiar. A large number of bright galaxies deep in the universe formed during a period called “Cosmic Dawn." New research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters shows that a theoretical model produced roughly five years ago predicted these very observations and credits them to bursty star formation.