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.
Long after the hard shaking stops, an earthquake's seismic waves reverberate around the world, imperceptibly rocking the ground. As one seismologist puts it, a great earthquake causes every grain of sand on Earth to dance.
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.
Physicists have been inventing new types of accelerators to propel charged particles to higher and higher energies for more than 80 years. Today, scientists estimate that more than 17,000 accelerators are in operation around the world—in industry, in hospitals, and at research institutions.
A visitor wandering around SLAC last July would be forgiven for thinking the hot California sun had triggered a mirage. A parking lot at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource had transformed into a glistening lake.
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.
