reionization – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/#respond Wed, 20 Sep 2023 15:15:50 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=130298 The post The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Cynthia Chiang always wanted to work with her hands. Although it may sound counterintuitive, it’s what led her to the fairly abstract field of observational cosmology: studying the cosmos’s origin and development by gathering data on the universe’s early years. Her trip into this work began when she was applying to graduate school and she checked out a lab in a basement at the California Institute...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-experimental-cosmologist-hunting-for-the-first-sunrise-20230920/feed/ 0 Four Years On, New Experiment Sees No Sign of ‘Cosmic Dawn’ https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-new-experiment-astronomers-see-no-sign-of-cosmic-dawn-20220228/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-new-experiment-astronomers-see-no-sign-of-cosmic-dawn-20220228/#respond Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:00:15 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=112793 The post Four Years On, New Experiment Sees No Sign of ‘Cosmic Dawn’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 2018, astronomers operating an antenna called EDGES in the Australian outback reported that radio waves of a particular frequency were significantly dimmer than other waves coming from the night sky. The finding, published in Nature, was heralded as a groundbreaking signal from the birth of the first stars after the Big Bang — an event dubbed “cosmic dawn,” which should have stamped such a...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-new-experiment-astronomers-see-no-sign-of-cosmic-dawn-20220228/feed/ 0 The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works. https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-matters-so-much-20211203/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-matters-so-much-20211203/#respond Fri, 03 Dec 2021 15:55:37 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=110667 The post The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Editor’s note: This article package was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. To look back in time at the cosmos’s infancy and witness the first stars flicker on, you must first grind a mirror as big as a house. Its surface must be so smooth that, if the mirror were the scale of a continent, it would feature no hill or valley greater than ankle height. Only a mirror so huge and...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-matters-so-much-20211203/feed/ 0 How the Cosmic Dark Ages Snuffed Out All Light https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/#respond Mon, 02 Mar 2020 16:48:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=81864 The post How the Cosmic Dark Ages Snuffed Out All Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Darkness isn’t always the absence of light. It can also be the inability of light to get very far. And just as the brightest headlight can be blocked by a thick fog, the first stars in the universe were shrouded by their immediate surroundings. Astronomers call this time period the cosmic dark ages, and they are slowly unraveling the mystery of how and when it ended. The obvious challenge is that...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-cosmic-dark-ages-snuffed-out-all-light-20200302/feed/ 0 Whisper From the First Stars Sets Off Loud Dark Matter Debate https://www.quantamagazine.org/whisper-from-the-first-stars-sets-off-loud-dark-matter-debate-20180329/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/whisper-from-the-first-stars-sets-off-loud-dark-matter-debate-20180329/#respond Thu, 29 Mar 2018 14:51:51 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=57421 The post Whisper From the First Stars Sets Off Loud Dark Matter Debate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The news about the first stars in the universe always seemed a little off. Last July, Rennan Barkana, a cosmologist at Tel Aviv University, received an email from one of his longtime collaborators, Judd Bowman. Bowman leads a small group of five astronomers who built and deployed a radio telescope in remote western Australia. Its goal: to find the whisper of the first stars. Bowman and his team...

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