SMU Department of Physics
Daily Mail: Huge 12 billion-year-old explosion in space has been spotted from Earth – and it could reveal secrets of the early universe
The U.K.’s widely read newspaper the Daily Mail covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.
The astronomy team in May reported observation of intense light from the enormous explosion of a star more than 12 billion years ago — shortly after the Big Bang — that recently reached Earth and was visible in the sky. Continue reading
Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Continue reading
Dark matter has never been detected, but scientists believe it constitutes a large part of our universe. Key to finding dark matter is determining its mass, or the volume of matter it contains. Continue reading
Journalist Lauren Aguirre of the SMU Daily Campus covered the research of SMU physicist Thomas E. Coan, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Physics.
Coan works with more than 200 scientists around the world to study one of the universe’s most elusive particles — the neutrino.
Neutrinos are generated in nature through the decay of radioactive elements and from high-energy collisions between fundamental particles, such as in the Big Bang that ignited the universe. Continue reading
SMU joins nearly 2,000 physicists from U.S. institutions — including 89 U.S. universities and seven U.S. DOE labs — that participate in discovery experiments Book a live interview To book a live or taped interview with Ryszard Stroynowski in the … Continue reading
NOvA neutrino detector in Minnesota records first 3-D particle tracks in search to understand universe
What will soon be the most powerful neutrino detector in the United States has recorded its first three-dimensional images of particles. Scientists’ goal for the completed detector is to use it to discover properties of mysterious fundamental particles called neutrinos.
Using the first completed section of the NOvA neutrino detector under construction in Minnesota, scientists have begun collecting data from cosmic rays—particles produced by a constant rain of atomic nuclei falling on the Earth’s atmosphere from space.
The article, “Exploding stars offer clues to dark energy,” was published Feb. 28. Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova by SMU graduate students in the physics department. Continue reading
The article, “Exploding stars offer clues to dark energy,” was published Feb. 28. Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova by SMU graduate students in the physics department.