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.
For a growing number of so-called Nerdcore rappers, the message is that people need to support basic research and math and science education if they want to hand future generations a nation worth bragging about.
Every so often, particle physics communicators from labs around the world gather to swap strategies for getting people interested in science. At the group's April meeting in Japan, the big hit was toilet paper.
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.
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.
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.
The blue team rounded the bend first—sweaty, jovial, and headed toward the halfway point of the 2.4-mile path circling Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Suddenly, from the other direction, the yellow team emerged.
