Tim Childers

Live Science Contributor

Articles by: Tim Childers

an artist's illustration of the most distant quasar known with radio jets

Universe's oldest known quasar discovered 13 billion light-years away

By Tim Childers published

Astronomers have found the farthest known source of radio emissions in the universe: a galaxy-swallowing supermassive black hole.

Artist's concept of a black hole in space.

Lab-grown black hole analog behaves just like Stephen Hawking said it would

By Tim Childers published

Like mad scientists, researchers are creating miniature black holes in their laboratories. Their mission? To see if a mysterious form of radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking exists.

The black hole Cygnus X-1 is pulling material from a massive blue companion star. That "stuff" forms an accretion disk around the black hole.

Astronomers find the fastest spinning black hole to date

By Tim Childers published

The first black hole ever discovered just put on a lot of mass, and it has astronomers confused.

Using a cellphone.

5G Network: How does it work, and is it dangerous?

By Tim Childers published

Cosmic bubbles may have created dark matter.

Cosmic bubbles may have forged dark matter, new theory suggests

By Tim Childers published

New theory suggests cosmic bubbles during the birth of our universe are responsible for creating dark matter.

Abstract illustration of quantum entanglement.

Physicists entangle 15 trillion hot atoms

By Tim Childers published

Physicists set a new record by linking together a hot soup of 15 trillion atoms in a bizarre phenomenon called quantum entanglement.

Stars and space, astronomy concept

Is life a gamble? Scientist models universe to find out

By Tim Childers published

Scientist finds life in the universe could be common, but we may never find it.

A woman draws a graph with an upward trend on a whiteboard.

What is epidemiology?

By Tim Childers published

Learn how these disease detectives save lives by studying and preventing the spread of the worst bugs and diseases.

an abstract image of a quantum computer

Physicists link quantum memories across the longest distance ever

By Tim Childers published

We're one step closer to having quantum internet, but wait, what is quantum internet?

A dead coral reef.

What is ocean acidification?

By Tim Childers published

The global increase in carbon dioxide emissions is not only warming our planet at an alarming rate, but it's also making our oceans more acidic.

High-energy particle collisions, neutrinos.

Identity-Switching Neutrinos Could Reveal Why We Exist At All. But Can We Find Them?

By Tim Childers published

Scientists are searching for a ghostly neutrino particle that acts as its own antiparticle. If they find it, the discovery could resolve a cosmic conundrum: Why does matter exist at all?

The centers of massive galaxy clusters are super hot (red), while bright structures show diffuse gas from the intergalactic medium shock heating at the boundary between cosmic voids and filaments. 

Physicists Just Created the Most Detailed Simulation of the Universe in History

By Tim Childers published

An international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50.

an artist's illustration of the big bang

We May Finally Understand the Moments Before the Big Bang

By Tim Childers published

Physicists may have solved a decades-long mystery about how our universe came to be.

Google's Sycamore chip is kept cool inside their quantum cryostat.

Google's Quantum Computer Just Aced an 'Impossible' Test

By Tim Childers published

For the first time, a quantum computer has solved a task that Google says would be impossible for the most advanced supercomputers in the world.

LHC particle collisions

Einstein's Theory Predicts a Weird State of Matter. Could It Be Lurking in the World's Largest Atom Smasher?

By Tim Childers published

This mysterious matter was predicted from Einstein's theory of special relativity, but physicists can't seem to find it!

an image of the crab nebula, which green yellow and pink light

Right Again, Einstein! Wobbling Pulsar Confirms General Relativity

By Tim Childers published

A pulsar 25,000 light-years away is wobbling in a weird way. But Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted it more than a century ago.

Artist depiction of a supernova explosion in space.

'Einstein's Biggest Blunder' May Have Finally Been Fixed

By Tim Childers published

The cosmological constant has plagued physicists for more than a century.

2015 Perseid Meteor Shower in the Danish Sky

What's the Difference Between Asteroids, Comets and Meteors?

By Tim Childers published

Look! Up in the sky! It's an asteroid.... No, it's a comet.... Wait, it's neither?

helix nebula

Astronomers Create 8 Million Baby Universes Inside a Computer and Watch Them Grow. Here's What They Learned.

By Tim Childers published

"UniverseMachine" churns out millions of unique universes to study dark matter and the evolution of galaxies.

Lava from Hawaii volcano eruption.

A Tiny Magma Blob May Rewrite Earth's History of Plate Tectonics

By Tim Childers published

An International team of scientists finds evidence that Earth began recycling itself more than 3 billion years ago.

Planet Earth with sunrise and flare glint in background.

If Aliens Are Flashing Laser Beams at Us, We Now Have a Way to Detect Them

By Tim Childers published

Are aliens using super powerful flashlights to get our attention? Astronomers think there's a chance they are.

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