"it's in the way you're always hiding from the light / fast off to heaven like moses on a motorbike"

Exciting times in astronomy and astrophysics:

Electromagnetic and gravitational waves observed together for the first time, from a nova* called GW170817 caused by the collision of two neutron stars. More. Among other really cool results, a demonstration that as Einstein predicted gravitational waves travel at the speed of light.

Half of the mass of the universe, previously missing, has been found hiding between the seat cushions. More. This is the ordinary ("baryonic") matter we know about and are -- we were pretty sure it had to be somewhere, based on models of the universe, but couldn't see it because it's not hot (i.e., inside stars) and so isn't bright -- as opposed to the still-unobserved "dark matter" that we think is causing other, weirder effects. (via)

New hypothesis about knots in the early universe suggests that they provide an answer to both why the universe is three dimensional (knots can only form in 3D spaces -- they can be unraveled in higher dimensional spaces) and what powered the early inflationary universe. (via)


* Technically a kilonova.

---L.

Subject quote from "Break It Down Again," Tears for Fears.