Cosmology News

The nature of dark matter is still very much unknown; viable candidates range from microsopic elementary particles to black holes with masses many times that of the Sun. Researchers at MPA, Carnegie Observatories, and the University of Sussex have recently made concrete and reliable predictions for how the Universe would look if dark matter consists entirely of massive black holes: they performed the first self-consistent study of how structure would form in such a Universe, and how many of these black holes merge and emit observable gravitational waves. more

The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope is now ready to be assembled at its destination in the Atacama Desert. Planned to take up operations in April 2026, it will be able to look all the way back to the Big Bang, revealing new details about star and galaxy formation.
  more

The expansion rate of the Universe, quantified by the Hubble constant (H₀), remains one of the most debated quantities in cosmology. Measurements based on nearby objects yield a higher value than those inferred from observations of the early Universe—a discrepancy known as the "Hubble tension". Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and their collaborators have now presented a new, independent determination of H₀ using Type II supernovae. By modeling the light from these exploding stars with advanced radiation transport techniques, they were able to directly measure distances without relying on the traditional distance ladder. The resulting H₀ value agrees with other local measurements and adds to the growing body of evidence for the Hubble tension, offering an important cross-check and a promising path toward resolving this cosmic puzzle. more

Most stars form in clusters, deeply embedded in the densest and coldest cores of giant molecular gas clouds. A few million years into the formation of a cluster the remaining gas is finally expelled by supernova explosions. Thereafter the clusters lose stars in the galactic tidal field and eventually disrupt. This entire life-cycle is very difficult to observe. Star clusters begin their lives deeply embedded in their birth clouds and are invisible to most observatories and the disruption of a single cluster can take tens of millions of years or more. An international team led by researchers at MPA has presented a new high-resolution supercomputer simulation, which can follow entire galactic star cluster life-cycles from birth to disruption and sheds light on the unobservable phases of star cluster evolution. more

Researchers have finished equipping the Subaru Telescope with a new special “compound eye” culminating several years of effort. This new instrument features approximately 2,400 fibers scattered across the extremely wide field of view available at the Subaru Telescope’s primary focus, allowing for simultaneous spectroscopic observation of thousands of celestial objects. This unrivaled capability will help researchers precisely understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and the Universe once it begins scientific operations in February 2025. more