Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Astrophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

The latest supernovae survey reveals the crucial importance in furthering our understanding of supernovae and reaching confident conclusions as soon as possible.

The standard theory of stellar evolution results in an explosion and is revealed in a rare and beautiful astronomical event. Astronomers search for these events in the hope that they will provide greater insight into our understanding of stellar evolution. Although each supernovae event is different, specific stars will yield certain characteristics. One type of Supernovae event that is of particular interest is the type associated with a binary star system in which one of the components is a white dwarf – this is known as a Type 1a supernova. White dwarfs are extremely dense stars that have exhausted all their hydrogen and their extreme density is thus a result of them not being able to support the inward pull of gravity...

Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicist

Cosmic dawn, the epoch given to the point in time when the first ever stars formed, may now just be in sight.

To look back in time to when the first ever stars formed in the Universe, we need ever more powerful telescopes to be able to detect the faintest of light. This electromagnetic radiation, that has travelled billions of light years across the universe, is stretched towards the red end of the spectrum – its wavelength is said to be red-shifted. A measurement of this redshift can tell us how far this light has travelled and thus what epoch in time it came from.

A team of scientists led by Takuya Hashimoto, from Osaka Sangyo University in Japan, have just observed the gravitationally lensed galaxy, MACS149-JDI, and confirmed it to be one of the farthest objects from Earth. Utilizing the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large...

Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Astrophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Charge – that is the degree to which an entity is affected by an external force – comes in all shapes in sizes. Now for the first-time scientists have been able to determine the weak charge of the proton.

The weak force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature and is significant in radioactivity – the spontaneous emission of energy and/or subatomic particles i.e. an unstable nucleus will decompose spontaneously (decay) into a more stable configuration. Note, this is done by emitting specific particles and/or specific amounts/forms of energy. For example, radioactive beta decay transforms a neutron into a proton, an electron, and an electron anti-neutrino.

The standard model describes these forces in terms of the exchange of virtual force carriers. In this model the weak force is thought to interact thorough the exchange of the massive (~ 100 x mass of a proton)...

Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Astrophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Cosmic rays can mean any high energy from the cosmos and were only referred to as rays for historical reasons – in that they thought cosmic rays were electromagnetic radiation. However generally cosmic rays refer to high energy particles with mass whereas high energy in the form of gamma rays and/or X-rays are photons. These cosmic particles were discovered in 1912 by Victor Hess when he ascended to 5300 meters above sea level in a hot air balloon and detected significantly increased levels of ionization in the atmosphere.

Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) are extremely energetic sub-atomic particles with energies of the order 100 PeV (that is 100,000 trillion electron volts). Their origin has long remained a mystery. However, an intriguing coincidence in the energy generation rates of UHECRs, cosmic neutrinos and gamma rays are comparable – indicating a unified picture....