What if the universe started with a dark big bang?

In the standard cosmological picture, the early universe was a very strange place. Perhaps the most important thing that happened in our universe was the inflation event, which sent the universe very early after the Big Bang into a period of extremely rapid expansion.

When inflation ended, the strange quantum fields that gave rise to this event faded away, transforming themselves into a flood of particles and radiation that persists today.

When the universe was less than 20 minutes old, these particles began to coalesce into the first protons and neutrons during what we call the nuclear structure of the Big Bang.

The nuclear composition of the Big Bang is one of the pillars of modern cosmology, as the calculations behind it accurately predict the amount of hydrogen and helium in the universe.

And yet, despite the success of our picture of the early universe, we still don't understand dark matter, the mysterious, invisible form of matter that makes up the vast majority of the mass in the universe. The standard assumption in Big Bang models is that whatever process generated particles and radiation also created dark matter. After that, dark matter took over, ignoring everything else.

But a team of researchers proposed a new idea. They argue that inflation and the era of the nuclear composition of the Big Bang did not happen alone.

Dark matter may have evolved along an entirely separate path. In this scenario, when inflation ended, it was still flooding the universe with particles and radiation. But not dark matter. Instead, there were some remaining quantum fields that had not decomposed.

As the universe expanded and cooled, this additional quantum field eventually transformed itself, leading to the formation of dark matter.

The advantage of this approach is that it separates the evolution of dark matter from ordinary matter, so that the Big Bang nucleosynthesis process as we currently understand it can continue while dark matter evolves along a separate path.

This approach also opens up avenues for exploring a rich variety of theoretical models for dark matter because now that it has a separate evolutionary path, it is easier to track it in calculations to see how it compares to observations.

For example, the team behind the paper was able to determine that if there was a so-called dark big bang, it must have occurred when the universe was less than a month old.

The research also found that the appearance of the dark Big Bang triggered a very unique signal of powerful gravitational waves that would continue in the present universe. Ongoing experiments such as timing pulsar arrays should be able to detect these gravitational waves, if they exist.

We still don't know if a dark big bang happened, but this work provides a clear path to test the idea. Source: ScienceAlert

Japan fails again to launch its new rocket into space after the operation was postponed 3 times

The Japanese Space Agency announced the failure of the attempt to launch the new "H3" rocket into space, after the launch was postponed 3 times earlier due to technical problems and weather conditions.

Japan fails again to launch its new rocket into space after the operation was postponed 3 timesJapan postpones the first launch of its new space rocket , After failing to launch its new missile, Japan intends to repeat the ball soon!

And specialists from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) decided to abort the "H3" rocket flight from the "Tanegashima" Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, due to their uncertainty about the operation of the second stage engine.

The director of the Japanese Space Agency said that the abortion of the flight was decided "because it is impossible to predict the successful completion of the mission," adding that "it was decided to send the destruction signal to the missile."

The current launch attempt was the fourth of its kind, as the missile was scheduled to be launched on February 13, but it was postponed to February 15 due to problems with the flight control system, which is responsible for changing the position of the missile according to the wind direction.

On February 15, the launch was not allowed due to weather conditions, after which it was postponed to February 17, then the attempt also failed and it was decided to stop the launch due to technical problems.

The "H3" missile is supposed to replace the "H2A" missile currently in use.

The new missile can carry 1.3 times more than the "H2A", and the launch costs are half the cost of launching the "H2A" missile. Source: Novosti

Archaeologists discover comb made of human skull bones

Archaeologists have found a comb made of human skull bones dating back to the Iron Age.

It is reported that during the construction of a wild road in Bar Hill, England, in 2018, a comb was found made in the Iron Age (750 BC - 43 AD) from human skull bones, and now archaeologists have published the results of his study on the MOLA (Museum of London Archeology) website. .

And this comb is no different at first glance from the rest of the ancient objects dating back to the Iron Age that have been discovered. But it turned out later that this comb was made of human skull bones and was not used in daily life, as scientists did not find any trace of erosion of its teeth.

The researchers have proven that the comb has a hole, and it appears that it was used to attach it to clothes. They therefore believe that this comb served as an amulet and that it was made from the bones of an important person who remained honored even after his death.

It should be noted that this comb is the third that scientists have found in England, as they had previously found the first comb in the seventies of the last century and the second comb in the first decade of the twenty-first century near Barhill.

Scientists believe that these discoveries may refer to specific traditions that were prevalent in this region during the Stone Age. Source: Novosti