The year 2024 was a landmark year for science, particularly in the fields of physics and astronomy, where important discoveries were made that will forever change our understanding of the world around us. From new advances in the study of atomic nuclei to sensational space observations, the year brought numerous breakthroughs that opened new horizons for future research. To summarise, it is worth highlighting a few of the most impressive events that shook the scientific community.
Last autumn, astronomer Sumner Starrfield of Arizona State University announced a rare event: a supernova explosion in the constellation Corona Borealis that could be as bright as Polaris. This explosion is associated with the interaction of a binary star system normally too dim to be observed by the naked eye.
A team at the University of Oxford has achieved a breakthrough in visualizing Neptune and Uranus. New techniques for analyzing data from the Voyager 2 mission and images from the Hubble telescope have revealed that both planets are a different color than previously thought.
Researchers from the University of Southern California have found that the Earth’s inner core is slowing down in its movement relative to the surface. By analyzing seismic data for 30 years, they confirmed that this phenomenon can significantly affect the dynamics of our planet.
In September, scientists from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid discovered that a small asteroid had become a temporary mini-satellite of Earth, making a revolution around it in a matter of months.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity discovered yellow sulfur crystals hidden in a rock on Mars in May. This discovery is unique and is likely to be the basis for new research that will explain its origin.
In early November, researchers from Argonne National Laboratory conducted the largest astrophysical simulation of the Universe using the Frontier supercomputer. This experiment set new standards in cosmological research.
Cosmologist Wendy Freedman of the University of Chicago has announced that new data from the James Webb telescope indicate that there is no “Hubble tension”. They confirmed that the expansion rate of the Universe is 70 km/s per megaparsec, which is consistent with the standard cosmological model.
Finally, a team of physicists from the University of Birmingham has proposed a new theory of the interaction of light and matter at the quantum level. They were able to determine the shape of a single photon and visualize it for the first time, which is a significant breakthrough in quantum physics.
We previously featured the best astronomical photos of 2024.
Provided by phys.org
