Alongside the release of the image, scientists dropped six papers documenting how they created the image and what they’ve already learned about the black hole at the center of M87.
Some of Fermilab's mechanical technicians spend a lot of time underground. In the echoing tunnels of the Tevatron collider they fix things, crawling behind equipment to replace aging nuts and bolts and repair everything from vacuum pumps to multi-ton superconducting magnets.
Chugging along in the background, old physics machines are the workhorses behind many cutting-edge projects, from the world's most powerful X-ray laser to the Large Hadron Collider and a lab that tests microchips bound for Mars.
A long time ago in a national laboratory far, far away some physicists looked around their workplace and thought of dark forces. Not dark matter; not dark energy; but the ultimate force from the dark side: Darth Vader.
When the Bevatron switched on at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the fall of 1954, it was the largest particle accelerator ever built, capable of producing energies upwards of six billion electronvolts.
In August, robots, mummies, and giant jellyfish took over Chicago's Millennium Park. Fortunately, the invasion was peaceful—just part of the fun at the latest LabFest, a kind of pumped-up, hands-on outdoor science fair aimed to engage Chicagoans in the excitement of science.
She could take her pick of extreme adventures—rock climbing, skydiving, trekking through some exotic wilderness. The Swiss TV show Sportpanorama gave Dominique Gisin, winner of two International Ski Federation World Cup downhill victories in 2009, the chance to do anything she'd like.
Worried about getting the experimental data they need to finish their PhDs, about two dozen graduate students have left the long-delayed Large Hadron Collider for experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron. Most of them say they won't be gone for long.