Black Hole Merger Confirmed!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…. Two black holes, with masses 29 and 35 times the mass of the Sun, merged to form an even bigger black hole.  The merger resulted in three entire suns worth of matter converted to pure energy in the form of gravitational waves. The waves travelled a billion light years before a tiny meat-filled species on a pale blue dot in space figured how to see them.  Thanks to the smartest one that species had seen in a century, they knew that black holes might merge, and that they would produce these waves if...

Gravity Waves or Not? Big Discovery May Need a Tune-Up

Last year we received some incredible news about Cosmology and the Big Bang.  An experiment devised to find the signature of the inflationary model of the Universe told the world they had done it!  The world cheers, as did many scientists; but of course there are always reasons to be sceptical, especially with claims that have such an impact for humanity let alone the science world. And now it seems the scepticism was correct, as the conclusive result has now been deemed inconclusive.  This doesn’t mean its false, not by a long shot, but it does mean the research team...