If you have ever seen the Milky Way in the night sky, you probably noticed that it looks cloudy. That is because towards the centre of our galaxy, and of most galaxies, there are vast amounts of dust that make it hard to see what is going on. That means a big swathe
In 2019, a strange event was observed in the depths of space. Called GW190521, the event sent out gravitational waves – invisible ripples in the universe – that were picked up on Earth. These waves appeared to mark the moment when two massive black holes, dozens of times the mass of our Sun,
Below the waves of the Mediterranean, Europe’s KM3NeT neutrino telescope is on a cosmic hunt. Towering strings of sensors stretch a kilometre down to the seafloor, arranged in a vast 3D grid. Its mission? To capture ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos, messengers that can travel unhindered across the universe – even through planets
Illustration of the Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama desert. ESO, CC BY Richard Massey, Durham University In recent decades, we’ve learnt huge amounts about the universe and its history. The rapidly developing technology of telescopes – both on Earth and in space – has been a key part of
A widespread misconception has long equated black holes in space with nothingness, ‘the end of everything’. But a global team of scientists, including EU-funded researchers, has managed to photograph them, discovering enough new evidence to take their probe even further. Dutch-German astronomer and professor Heino Falcke is one of those who want to