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Tag: cosmology and astrophysics

Scientists Team Up With Industry to Mass-Produce Detectors for Next-Gen Cosmic Experiment

Photo - Existing instrumentation at the Atacama Desert site where some of the CMB-S4 telecopes will be built. CMB-S4 will also include telescopes at the South Pole. (Photo courtesy of Aritoki Suzuki/Berkeley Lab)

Topping Off a Telescope with New Tools to Explore Dark Energy

Photo - Crews at the Mayall Telescope near Tucson, Arizona, lift and install the top-end components for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI. The components, which include a stack of six lenses and other structures or positioning and support, weigh about 12 tons. DESI, scheduled to begin its sky survey next year, is designed to produce the largest 3-D map of the universe and produce new clues about the nature of dark energy. (Credit: David Sprayberry, NOAO/AURA)

Scientists Present New Clues to Cut Through the Mystery of Titan’s Atmospheric Haze

Image - The atmospheric haze of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon (pictured here along Saturn’s midsection), is captured in this natural-color image (box at left). A new study, which involved X-ray experiments at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, has revealed new clues that may help to unravel the formation of this haze. (Credits: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Science Institute, Caltech)

A Quantum Leap Toward Expanding the Search for Dark Matter

Image - A visualization of a massive galaxy cluster that shows dark matter density (purple filaments) overlaid with the gas velocity field. (Credit: Illustris Collaboration)

Berkeley Lab to Push Quantum Information Frontiers With New Programs in Computing, Physics, Materials, and Chemistry

Photo - A nanofabrication clean room at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry. (Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt/Berkeley Lab)

A Supercool Component for a Next-Generation Dark Matter Experiment

Photo - A worker inspects the titanium cryostat for the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment in a clean room. (Credit: STFC)

IceCube Neutrinos Point to Long-Sought Cosmic Ray Accelerator

Image - In this artistic composition, based on a real image of the IceCube Lab at the South Pole, a distant source emits neutrinos that are detected below the ice by IceCube sensors, called digital optical modules (DOMs). (Credit: IceCube/NSF)

Berkeley Lab’s Julian Borrill Elected Co-Spokesperson of Next-Gen Cosmic Microwave Background Experiment

Photo - Julian Borrill in Chile's Atacama Desert with the POLABEAR and ACT telescopes in the background. (Photo courtesy of Julian Borrill/Berkeley Lab)

Beyond the WIMP: Unique Crystals Could Expand the Search for Dark Matter

Image - A computerized simulation of the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe. An overlay graph (in white) shows how a crystal sample intensely scintillates, or glows, when exposed to X-rays during a lab test. This and other properties could make it a good material for a dark matter detector. (Credit: Millennium Simulation, Berkeley Lab)

Chemical Sleuthing Unravels Possible Path to the Formation of Life’s Building Blocks in Space

Image - The atomic structure of pyrene molecules (upper left and upper right) are represented in an artist's rendering of an asteroid belt. A new study shows chemical steps for how pyrene, a type of hydrocarbon found in some meteorite samples, could form in space. (Credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech, Wikimedia Commons)

Can Strongly Lensed Type Ia Supernovae Resolve One of Cosmology’s Biggest Controversies?

Image - This composite of two astrophysics simulations shows a Type Ia supernova (purple disc) expanding over different microlensing magnification patterns (colored fields). Because individual stars in the lensing galaxy can significantly change the brightness of a lensed event regions of the supernova can experience varying amounts of brightening and dimming, which scientists believed would be a problem for cosmologists measuring time delays. Using detailed computer simulations at NERSC, astrophysicists showed that this would have a small effect on time-delay cosmology. (Credit: Danny Goldstein/UC Berkeley)

Ingredients for Life Revealed in Meteorites That Fell to Earth

Image - Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt pictured here in this NASA-produced false-color image, may be the source of organic matter found on two meteorites that crashed to Earth in 1998. (Credit: NASA)