PBS_SpaceTime

We’ve been failing to detect dark matter for decades. Finally, the latest failure to detect dark matter may have actually proved its existence. One of these is true: either most of the matter in the universe is invisible and formed of something not explained by modern particle physics OR our understanding of gravity is completely broken.

In this episode of the Space Time Journal Club Matt discusses how two independent research teams created their own Time Crystals, a form of matter that breaks time translational symmetry and could be used in quantum computers.

The Hubble Telescope found more evidence of vast plumes of water bursting through the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. What does this tell us about the potential for life on Europa?

Was an incredible drop in entropy responsible for the Big Bang? If that’s the case, this would lead us to conclude that a great many other things are possible, including the likelihood that you are a Boltzmann Brain.

It’s the most famous prediction of perhaps the most famous genius of our time ... Stephen Hawking's theory of Hawking Radiation.

What exactly will happen when the sun dies?

In this video, we discuss the reports about the detection of a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting only one light year apart from each other. Studying the dance of these giants should tell us a ton about how black holes grow.

If you have perfect knowledge of every single particle in the universe, can you use the laws of physics to rewind all the way back to the Big Bang? Is the entire history of the universe perfectly knowable? Or has information somehow lost along the way?

Conservation laws are among the most important tools in physics. They feel as fundamental as you can get. And yet they’re wrong - or at least they’re only right sometimes. These laws are consequences of a much deeper, more fundamental principle: Noether’s theorem.

Energy is the most powerful and useful concept in all of physics, but what exactly is it?

Population III stars were the very first stars in our universe and far larger than any we can see today. Where are they now?

Physics seems to be telling us that it’s possible to simulate the entire universe on a computer smaller than the universe

The prospect of interstellar travel is no longer sci-fi. It COULD be achievable within our lifetime! But, how would an interstellar rocket-ship work? On this week's episode of Space Time, Matt talks options for interstellar travel - from traditional rocket fuel to antimatter drives, could we travel to other star systems? Watch this episode of Space Time to find out!

Last time we talked about what curvature means, looked at geodesics, great circles on spheres, and tried to understand the notion of "straightness". This week on Spacetime, we take a detour into how geometry works in spacetime. Get excited, because this episode is even more mind-bending than the last!

To repeat the space time maxim: it’s never aliens … until it is. So let’s talk about ‘oumuamua.

The Hubble Telescope found more evidence of vast plumes of water bursting through the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. What does this tell us about the potential for life on Europa?

As long as we've been around, YES. But the universe gets much more exciting, AND much BRIGHTER, as we start winding our clocks back to the early days of the universe. Near the beginning of the universe, when space was rapidly expanding, that dark night sky we know so well as actually…ORANGE! But why? Did the lights just go out, or did something more spectacular happen?

Hook up an old antenna to your TV and scan between channels. The static buzz you hear is mostly due to the ambient radio produced by our noisy pre-galactic civilization. But around one percent of that buzz is something very different – it’s the cosmic microwave background radiation.

There is a fundamental limit to the knowability of the universe. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle tells us that the more precisely we try to define one property, the less definable is its counterpart. Knowing a particle’s location perfectly means its velocity is unknowable. But unmeasured properties are not just uncertain; they are undefined.

Let me tell you a story about virtual particles. It may or may not be true.

The professional astronomer or astrophysicist is a pretty recent phenomenon. In the past, astronomy was often performed by nobility and extremely enthusiastic amateurs. Although it seems like the scientific exploration of our universe is now in the hands of full-time career astro-professionals, a ton of really valuable science is still done by people with proper day jobs.

On July 4th 2016, the Juno spacecraft entered orbit around the planet Jupiter after leaving earth five years ago. The Juno probe will tell us what lies inside the mysterious gas giant and with this information we’ll better understand the formation of our solar system.

The power of Dark Energy may be increasing as the universe ages. Subtle clues are emerging that the accepted model for the nature of dark energy and dark matter may not be all that. We saw the first such clue recently in our recent episode on the Crisis in Cosmology. Today we’re doing a Space Time Journal Club to reveal another clue

We're just as fascinated as the rest of you with predicting how the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE will start. One surprisingly real scenario is that it could start in SPACE! Especially given the crazy effects space has on bacteria and viruses, and the difficulty of sterilization.

For years, astronomers have been unable to find up to half of the baryonic matter in the universe. We may just have solved this problem.