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Astrophysics and cosmology RSS feed

SLAC’s astrophysicists and cosmologists pursue top-priority research on topics including dark matter and dark energy, the formation of galaxies and cosmic evolution. 

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Astrophysics and cosmology

Dwarf Galaxy 3.

News Feature

SLAC's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) recently hosted many of the top scientists in the field to discuss the most important...

KIPAC mosaic
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via Albert Einstein Institute Hannover

Home Computers Discover Gamma-ray Pulsars

As volunteers for a project called Einstein@Home, citizen scientists unleashed the unused cycles of their home computers on data from the Large Area Telescope...

Image - The four newly discovered pulsars located on a map of the gamma-ray sky
News Feature
VIA Symmetry Magazine

Mock Data, Real Science

In scientific circles, “mock” is not always a four-letter word. To test that they’re interpreting their massive amounts of data correctly, astrophysicists create even...

News Feature

SLAC and Stanford physicists played a key role in monitoring and analyzing the brightest gamma ray burst ever measured, and suggest that its never-before-seen...

Image - Collapsing star shooting out jet of gas
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Scientists in SLAC's Integrated Circuits Department reach a new frontier in ultrafast X-ray science with intricately designed signal-processing chips that translate particles of light...

Four ePix100 prototype chips bonded in a test setup. (Brad Plummer/SLAC)
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Particle astrophysicists are helping illuminate the dark side of the universe for a new show at the American Museum of Natural History in New...

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Traces of iron spread smoothly throughout a massive galaxy cluster tell the 10 billion-year-old story of exploding supernovae and fierce outbursts from supermassive black...

Image: Illustration of some markers of the universe's turbulent youth, such as supernova explosions and active galactic nuclei (Akihiro Ikeshita).
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On June 11, 2008, what was then the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope rode a Delta II rocket into low-Earth orbit. After two months...

Photo - The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launches June 11, 2008
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For the 41st annual Particle Physics & Astrophysics Department’s SLAC Summer Institute (SSI), organizers introduced a successful new feature.

Public Lecture Poster
Whispers of the big bang
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Theorists from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology are helping dark matter sleuths decide where to start their search.

KIPAC theorists (l to r) Louis Strigari, Risa Wechsler and Yao-Yuan Mao discussing dark matter velocity distributions. (Credit: Luis Fernandez.)
News Feature

A record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world.

Image - Superbright gamma-ray burst