Topic description and stories

Looking up

08 Oct 2019

When Professor Didier Queloz spotted a light emitting from a star many light years away from the Earth, he thought it signalled the end of his PhD.

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Professor Queloz in his office at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.

Professor Didier Queloz wins 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for first discovery of an exoplanet

08 Oct 2019

Queloz jointly wins the 2019 Physics Nobel for his work on the first confirmation of an exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun...

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Women in STEM: Verity Allan

29 Aug 2019

Verity Allan is a graduate of Cambridge, Oxford, and ̽»¨Ö±²¥Open ̽»¨Ö±²¥. She is a PhD candidate at the Cavendish Laboratory and works as a project...

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‘Forbidden’ planet found wandering ‘Neptunian Desert’

29 May 2019

An international group of astronomers has identified a rogue planet orbiting its star in the so-called Neptunian Desert.

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Artist’s impression of the full Square Kilometre Array at night

Design work on ‘brain’ of world’s largest radio telescope completed

09 May 2019

An international group of scientists led by the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge has finished designing the ‘brain’ of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the...

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Artist's concept depicting one possible appearance of the planet Kepler-452b

Scientists identify exoplanets where life could develop as it did on Earth

01 Aug 2018

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist...

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Stephen Hawking

Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking’s final theory about the big bang

02 May 2018

Professor Stephen Hawking’s final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU...

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Gaia creates richest star map of our Galaxy – and beyond

25 Apr 2018

̽»¨Ö±²¥European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has produced the richest star catalogue to date, including high-precision measurements of nearly 1.7 billion...

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Supermassive black holes.

A force to be reckoned with

27 Nov 2017

Gravity is one of the universe's great mysteries. We decided to find out why. Think you know what gravity is? Think again. New research is revealing...

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Computer simulations motivated by GW150914

Using gravitational waves to catch runaway black holes

30 Jun 2016

Black holes are the most powerful gravitational force in the Universe. So what could cause them to be kicked out of their host galaxies? Cambridge...

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Artist’s impression of the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 from the surface of one of its planets.

Three potentially habitable worlds found around nearby ultracool dwarf star

02 May 2016

Three Earth-sized planets have been discovered orbiting a dim and cool star, and may be the best place to search for life beyond the Solar System.

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Artist’s impression depicting a compact object – either a black hole or a neutron star – feeding on gas from a companion star in a binary system.

Winds a quarter the speed of light spotted leaving mysterious binary systems

27 Apr 2016

Astronomers have observed two black holes in nearby galaxies devouring their companion stars at an extremely high rate, and spitting out matter at a...

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