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From the forces that keep athletes twirling and sliding, to the weird laws governing the world of the very small, to the far-out concepts of time travel and alternate universes, physics covers a lot of interesting territory. Here, Live Science keeps you abreast of all the fascinating physics discoveries.Physics

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This image shows the region where the ancient galactic structure was found. The blue shading shows the area it covers. The red objects in the zoomed-in bits are the 12 galaxies.

Huge Cosmic Structures Already Existed When the Universe Was a Baby

By Rafi Letzter

Astronomers have discovered the oldest cluster of galaxies ever seen.

The KATRIN experiment's giant spectrometer passed through Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany in 2006 on its way to the nearby Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Neutrino Experiment Reveals (Again) That Something Is Missing from Our Universe

By Rafi Letzter

The KATRIN experiment has turned up a new, more-precise-than-ever measurement for the barely-detectable neutrino mass.

When the universe was very young, almost all of the antimatter disappeared. And physicists don't know why.

A Strange New Higgs Particle May Have Stolen the Antimatter from Our Universe

By Paul Sutter

Physicists have proposed that a trio of particles called Higgs bosons could be responsible for the mysterious vanishing act of antimatter in the universe.

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

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

gravitational waves from two merging black holes.

Hidden Gravitational Wave Signal Reveals that Black Holes Are 'Bald'

By Rafi Letzter

Are black holes bald or hairy? It all depends on the details of a fleeting overtone.

This is the deepest image ever of the site of the neutron star collision. The white box highlights the region where the kilonova and afterglow were once visible.

Afterglow of Colliding Neutron Stars Would Outshine Our Sun

By Rafi Letzter

A new, hours-long Hubble study of the collision site revealed never-before-seen details of the neutron-star merger

A sped-up film of the black hole is presented alongside its light curve, brightening sharply in the X-ray spectrum at 9-hour intervals.

A Distant Black Hole Brightens Every 9 Hours, and No One Knows Why

By Rafi Letzter

Something's disrupting the distant black hole's accretion disk, but no one knows what it is.

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

Right Again, Einstein! Wobbling Pulsar Confirms General Relativity

By Tim Childers

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.

A NASA illustration shows a neutron star surrounded by a disk of matter.

Astronomers Decode Weird X-Ray Pattern Coming from Neutron Star

By Rafi Letzter

Astronomers have detected a neutron star system blasting X-ray light at Earth and detected a rare, months-long pattern in those light bursts.

Artist depiction of a supernova explosion in space.

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

By Tim Childers

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

the first ever direct image of a black hole, with yellow ring surrounding black circle

First Ever Black Hole Image Earns Researchers a $3 Million Prize

By Mindy Weisberger

The team of researchers that captured the first direct image of a black hole was honored with an "Oscar of Science" — the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

Poof!

Monstrous ‘Kilonova’ Explosions May Be Showering a Nearby Galaxy in Gold

By Brandon Specktor

The universe's most massive objects are crashing into each other, and they're leaving a rain of gold and platinum behind them.

LIGO merging neutron stars

To Hunt Gravitational Waves, Scientists Had to Create the Quietest Spot on Earth

By Dana Najjar

The largest physics detector on Earth hunts gravitational waves. But it needs to be really, really quiet to find them.

spacecraft, two spacecraft

Quantum Gravity Could Reverse Cause and Effect

By Stephanie Pappas

Any theory of quantum gravity is going to have to grapple with some weird time stuff.

spinning black hole with spacecraft entering

Physicists Just Released Step-by-Step Instructions for Building a Wormhole

By Paul Sutter

All you need are a couple of black holes and some cosmic strings. No biggie.

an image of the large magellanic cloud showing cosmic expansion rate discrepancy

One Number Shows Something Is Fundamentally Wrong with Our Conception of the Universe

By Adam Mann

Here's what's going on with the discrepancies in cosmic expansion measurements.

wormhole illustration

Sending Even a Tiny Message Through a Black Hole Would Make It Evaporate

By Mara Johnson-Groh

Sending a carrier pigeon across the cosmos would probably be a more reliable way to send a message.

The inside of a cylindrical antineutrino detector to detect rare fundamental particles.

Physicists Finally Narrowed Down the Mass of the Tiniest 'Ghost Particle' in the Universe

By Rafi Letzter

A new paper uses data about the structure of the entire universe to measure the mass of one of its smallest, hardest-to-study components.

Artist's Rendering of an Outburst on a Magnetar

Magnetars Can Crack Themselves Open and Bombard Earth with Gamma-Ray Flares, New Theory Suggests

By Rafi Letzter

Three giant gamma-ray flares have been detected in the last 40 years. A new paper on magnetars cracking themselves open could explain why.

helix nebula

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

By Tim Childers

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