gravity

19 Stories

Scientists Make a Key Antimatter Discovery
Decades of Work End in
Major Antimatter Discovery
new study
Sep 27, 2023 1:18 PM CDT

Decades of Work End in Major Antimatter Discovery

Scientists determine it does respond to gravity by falling

(Newser) - Earth and all the other planets are made of matter—and at the time of the Big Bang, matter and its opposite, antimatter, were created in equal amounts. In our current world, antimatter is all but impossible to find, making a big discovery regarding it equally big news. The finding...

Scott Kelly's Body Endured Another Surprise in Space

Astronaut's heart didn't have to work as hard in zero gravity and so it shrank 27%, scientists say

(Newser) - They called it the "perfect nature versus nurture" experiment : Astronaut Scott Kelly was sent to the International Space Station for nearly a year, while his identical twin, astronaut and now Sen. Mark Kelly, remained on Earth. When Scott Kelly came back home in March 2016, scientists compared his DNA...

Astronomers: There's a Space 'Superhighway'
Astronomers Find
Cosmic 'Superhighways'
new paper
Dec 12, 2020 3:40 PM CST

Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways'

Researchers call it a 'true celestial autobahn'

(Newser) - Think space travel is just too slow? Well, good news: Astronomers say they've uncovered an "autobahn" of invisible interactions that moves objects along—and might just speed up space exploration, Science Alert reports. The new research hinges on "manifolds," or gravitational regions that exist between orbital...

Astronaut's Blessing and Curse: Growing 3.5 Inches in Space

Norishige Kanai was likely joking about it being a problem, but not about it happening

(Newser) - One fringe benefit of an astronaut's trip to space: He or she returns to Earth taller (though only temporarily). That's thanks to the lack of gravity, which elongates the distance between the vertebrae in one's spine. And for one Japanese astronaut, the change has been more extreme...

Gravity Blanket Raises $3.5M, but Is It Too Good to Be True?

Maker retracts some health claims after STAT raises questions

(Newser) - A company hawking a "gravity blanket," which went viral on Kickstarter after claiming to treat everything from insomnia to anxiety, has doubled back on those promises after a website questioned its science. The crowdfunding campaign has raised $3.5 million with 15 days to go, but now, a...

Our Days Are a Smidge Longer Than They Used to Be
Our Days 
Are a Smidge
Longer Than
They Used to Be
study says
Dec 10, 2016 8:33 AM CST

Our Days Are a Smidge Longer Than They Used to Be

Which we know thanks to some meticulous ancient astronomers

(Newser) - The meticulous work of ancient astronomers has led to a modern observation: Our days are longer than they used to be. Not that you'd notice: The new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A shows that it takes the Earth a tiny bit longer these days to...

What Astronaut Scott Kelly Will Do as Soon as He Lands

His record-breaking trip was amazing

(Newser) - Scott Kelly has been hurtling through the cosmos on the International Space Station for nearly a year (340 days to be exact—a record), but on Tuesday, the NASA astronaut and his partner, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, will finally head home. ScienceAlert has the emotional video of Kelly handing the...

How the Earth Is Changing the Surface of the Moon

Our gravity is making patterns in lunar cliffs

(Newser) - Earth's gravity is making patterns in the thousands of small cliffs that wrinkle the shrinking surface of the moon, according to a new in Geology. Scientists determined the moon was shrinking—its surface has moved about 300 feet closer to its core over 4 billion years—back in 2010...

Nothing Can Pull Gravity Down
 Nothing Can  
 Pull Gravity 
 Down 
box office
Oct 13, 2013 1:46 PM CDT

Nothing Can Pull Gravity Down

Plunders 'Captain Phillips' with $44.3M

(Newser) - What goes up must come down—but it hasn't happened yet for highly lauded 3D thriller Gravity, which topped the box office for a second weekend with $44.3 million in ticket sales. Tom Hanks-led Somali pirate flick Captain Phillips sailed in to No. 2, grossing a seaworthy $26...

Neil deGrasse Tyson Picks Holes in Gravity

For a start, he says, it should be called 'Angular Momentum'

(Newser) - Because it wouldn't be a sci-fi film if geeks didn't tear it to shreds on the Internet, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has taken to Twitter to unravel what he deems the "mysteries of Gravity "—a film he says would more aptly be titled "...

CERN Wants Even Bigger Large Hadron Collider

50-mile monstrosity would study nature of gravity

(Newser) - The Large Hadron Collider just isn't large enough for CERN. The Geneva-based team that found the Higgs boson has set its sights on bigger and better things—emphasis on the bigger—and is now proposing replacing the current collider, which runs through 17 miles of tunnel, with a new...

$750M Later, Einstein Proven Right

 $750M Later, Einstein 
 Proven Right 
in case you missed it
May 8, 2011 6:18 AM CDT

$750M Later, Einstein Proven Right

NASA's Gravity Probe B vindicates predictions about warping of space, time

(Newser) - Einstein was right: Observations from NASA’s Gravity Probe B have confirmed that the Earth really does warp time and space around it. The probe contained four perfectly engineered gyroscopes, and took incredibly precise measurements of their spin axes, expecting the curve of space-time around the Earth to cause predictable...

'Potato Earth' Reveals Gravity's Uneven Pull

Goce satellite image gives clues on climate change, earthquakes

(Newser) - Gravity pulls harder on the French than it does on Americans—and a new image proves it. The graphic from earth’s lowest-flying scientific satellite shows the uneven distribution of gravity across the world, resulting in an exaggerated “potato”-shaped image, the BBC reports. The new data could have...

Team Proves Einstein's Relativity Affects Aging

Gravity's effect on time means your hair is aging faster than your feet

(Newser) - People age faster—very, very slightly faster—the higher above ground they live, according to scientists testing Einstein's theory of relativity. Researchers using ultra-precise atomic clocks found that time, as Einstein predicted, is slowed down by gravity even over minuscule distances. The scientists found that just moving a couple of...

Gravity Doesn't Exist: Physics Prof

String theorist shakes up 300 years of science

(Newser) - Anyone who's ever seen a ball drop knows it's obvious that gravity exists—right? Not so fast, says a prominent string theorist who has called into question 300 years of science with a new paper arguing that gravity is merely an illusion. Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde says gravity is not...

Gravity's Rainbow Captured in HD

Satellite provides picture of planet pull

(Newser) - A mesmerizingly multi-hued map of the Earth's gravity has been created with the help of detailed measurements taken by Europe's Goce satellite. The data has been transformed into a "geoid," or map, highlighting the differences in the planet's pull, from its mountain ranges to ocean trenches, to create...

Help Wanted: Pillownauts for NASA

They do so for months to mimic lunar gravity

(Newser) - If astronaut school seems too daunting, this might be the next best thing. NASA is offering $160 per day for human testers to lie down at a slight downward angle—a position that simulates the moon's gravitational pull—for months at a stretch. It may sound easy, but bodies aren't...

Laws of Physics May Need an Overhaul

Scientists detect gravity-defying behavior of spacecrafts

(Newser) - The laws of physics just might be broken. Scientists have detected gravity-defying behavior from spacecrafts flung around the Earth, the Economist reports. Five different spacecrafts picked up speed at a pace deviating,ever so slightly, from the laws created by Newton and Einstein. After laborious calculations, astronomers have created a...

Hubble Finds Dark Matter
Hubble Finds Dark Matter
May 15, 2007 8:00 AM CDT

Hubble Finds Dark Matter

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered a ring of dark matter in a galaxy cluster about 5 billion light years away. The Hubble Telescope turned up an anomaly in the way stars in the area appear, which researchers think is a distortion caused by the intense gravity of the galactic "glue" holding...

19 Stories