New flowchart to eliminate universe models

Cosmologists have many possible models for the universe, of which only one can be true. A new flowchart detailed in Physical Review D on November 7 will eliminate some of them when two specific universe features are accurately ...

Dark matter—hot or not?

For almost a century, astronomers and cosmologists have postulated that space is filled with an invisible mass known as "dark matter". Accounting for 27% of the mass and energy in the observable universe, the existence of ...

Herschel throws new light on oldest cosmic light

(Phys.org) —Cosmologists have achieved a first detection of a long-sought component in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This component, known as B-mode polarisation, is caused by gravitational lensing, the bending ...

New theory uncovers cancer's deep evolutionary roots

A new way to look at cancer—by tracing its deep evolutionary roots to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago—has been proposed by Paul Davies of Arizona State University's Beyond Center for Fundamental ...

Did Andromeda crash into the Milky Way 10 billion years ago?

(Phys.org) —For many years scientists have believed that our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is set to crash into its larger neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, in about 3 billion years' time and that this will be the first time such ...

Unusual supernova is doubly unusual for being perfectly normal

August, 2011, saw the dazzling appearance of the closest and brightest Type Ia supernova since Type Ia's were established as "standard candles" for measuring the expansion of the universe. The brilliant visitor, labeled SN ...

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Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order. Modern cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics.

Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, metaphysics, and religion. Related studies include cosmogony, which focuses on the origin of the Universe, and cosmography, which maps the features of the Universe. Cosmology is also connected to astronomy. However, they are contrasted in that while the former is concerned with the Universe in its entirety, the latter deals with individual celestial objects.

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