Simons Foundation

News

July 29, 2019

A Stellar Stream in the Milky Way Provides Evidence of Dark Substructure

A model of the stars in the GD-1 stellar stream overlaid on data collected by the Gaia spacecraft. The color of each stat represents how strongly its orbit was affected by the unknown dark matter substructure of the galaxy. White represents a significant change from normal, while red represents almost no difference

July 10, 2019

Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Discovered on a Collision Course By Thomas Sumner

An image of a galaxy with bright blobs stacked on top of one another in the middle. An inset shows a close up of the two blobs, which are the locations of supermassive black holes.

June 27, 2019

Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics Connects Students and Scientists

Two Kavli fellows in front of a computer

June 26, 2019

The First AI Simulation of the Universe Is Fast and Accurate — and Even Its Creators Don’t Know How It Works By Thomas Sumner

A comparison of the accuracy of two models of the universe. The new model (left), dubbed D3M, is both faster and more accurate than an existing method (right) called second-order perturbation theory, or 2LPT. The colors represent the average displacement error in millions of light-years for each point in the grid relative to a high-accuracy (though much slower) model

June 13, 2019

Evidence for a Dark Matter Clump in the Milky Way, Sky & Telescope

Still-dissolving globular cluster Palomar 5 (white blob in center) with its 5°-long tidal tails, shown using Sloan Digital Sky Survey data

May 14, 2019

Evidence Mounts for a Magellanic Collision, Sky & Telescope

Image of Small Magellanic Cloud

March 13, 2019

How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science, Quanta Magazine

Digital illustration of robot in front of a spiral galaxy

February 14, 2019

Gravitational Waves Will Settle Cosmic Conundrum

When neutron stars collide, they emit light and gravitational waves, as seen in this artist’s illustration. By comparing the timing of the two emissions from many different neutron star mergers, researchers can measure how fast the universe is expanding.