
-
PSG eye becoming France's first 'Invincibles'
-
Late birdie burst lifts Ryder to Texas Open lead
-
Five potential Grand National fairytale endings
-
Trump purges national security team after meeting conspiracist
-
More work for McIlroy even with two wins before Masters
-
Trump hopeful of 'great' PGA-LIV golf merger
-
No.1 Scheffler goes for third Masters crown in four years
-
Where Trump's tariffs could hurt Americans' wallets
-
Trump says 'very close to a deal' on TikTok
-
Trump tariffs on Mexico: the good, the bad, the unknown
-
Postecoglou denies taunting Spurs fans in Chelsea defeat
-
Oscar-winning Palestinian director speaks at UN on Israeli settlements
-
With tariff war, Trump also reshapes how US treats allies
-
Fernandez fires Chelsea into fourth as pressure mounts on Postecoglou
-
South Korea court to decide impeached president's fate
-
Penguin memes take flight after Trump tariffs remote island
-
E.T., no home: Original model of movie alien doesn't sell at auction
-
Italy's Brignone has surgery on broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Trump defiant as tariffs send world markets into panic
-
City officials vote to repair roof on home of MLB Rays
-
Rockets forward Brooks gets one-game NBA ban for technicals
-
Pentagon watchdog to probe defense chief over Signal chat row
-
US tariffs could push up inflation, slow growth: Fed official
-
New Bruce Springsteen music set for June 27 release
-
Tom Cruise pays tribute to Val Kilmer
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's tariffs list
-
Zuckerberg repeats Trump visits in bid to settle antitrust case
-
US fencer disqualified for not facing transgender rival
-
'Everyone worried' by Trump tariffs in France's champagne region
-
Italy's Brignone suffers broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Iyer blitz powers Kolkata to big IPL win over Hyderabad
-
Russian soprano Netrebko to return to London's Royal Opera House
-
French creche worker gets 25 years for killing baby with drain cleaner
-
UK avoids worst US tariffs post-Brexit, but no celebrations
-
Canada imposing 25% tariff on some US auto imports
-
Ruud wants 'fair share' of Grand Slam revenue for players
-
Lesotho, Africa's 'kingdom in the sky' jolted by Trump
-
Trump's trade math baffles economists
-
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
-
'Unprecedented crisis' in Africa healthcare: report
-
Pogacar gunning for blood and thunder in Tour of Flanders
-
Macron calls for suspension of investment in US until tariffs clarified
-
Wall St leads rout as world reels from Trump tariffs
-
Mullins gets perfect National boost with remarkable four-timer
-
Trump tariffs hammer global stocks, dollar and oil
-
Authors hold London protest against Meta for 'stealing' work to train AI
-
Tate Modern gifted 'extraordinary' work by US artist Joan Mitchell
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's new tariffs list
-
Tonali eager to lead Newcastle back into Champions League
-
Lesotho hardest hit as new US tariffs rattle Africa

Billion-light-year-wide 'bubble of galaxies' discovered
Astronomers have discovered the first "bubble of galaxies," an almost unimaginably huge cosmic structure thought to be a fossilised remnant from just after the Big Bang sitting in our galactic backyard.
The bubble spans a billion light years, making it 10,000 times wider than the Milky Way galaxy.
Yet this giant bubble, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, is a relatively close 820 million light years away from our home galaxy, in what astronomers call the nearby universe.
The bubble can be thought of as "a spherical shell with a heart," Daniel Pomarede, an astrophysicist at France's Atomic Energy Commission, told AFP.
Inside that heart is the Bootes supercluster of galaxies, which is surrounded by a vast void sometimes called "the Great Nothing".
The shell contains several other galaxy superclusters already known to science, including the massive structure known as the Sloan Great Wall.
Pomarede said the discovery of the bubble, which is described in research he co-authored that was published in The Astrophysical Journal this week, was "part of a very long scientific process".
It confirms a phenomenon first described in 1970 by US cosmologist -- and future physics Nobel winner -- Jim Peebles.
He theorised that in the primordial universe -- then a stew of hot plasma -- the churning of gravity and radiation created sound waves called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs).
As the sound waves rippled through the plasma, they created bubbles.
Around 380,000 years after the Big Bang the process stopped as the universe cooled down, freezing the shape of the bubbles.
The bubbles then grew larger as the universe expanded, similar to other fossilised remnants from the time after the Big Bang.
Astronomers previously detected signals of BAOs in 2005 when looking at data from nearby galaxies.
But the newly discovered bubble is the first known single baryon acoustic oscillation, according to the researchers.
- 'Unexpected' -
The astronomers called their bubble Ho'oleilana -- "sent murmurs of awakening" -- taking the name from a Hawaiian creation chant.
The name came from the study's lead author Brent Tully, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.
The bubble was discovered by chance, as part of Tully's work searching through new catalogues of galaxies.
"It was something unexpected," Pomarede said.
Tully said in a statement that the bubble is "so huge that it spills to the edges of the sector of the sky that we were analysing".
The pair enlisted the help of Australian cosmologist and BAO expert Cullan Howlett, who "mathematically determined the spherical structure which best corresponded to the data provided," Pomarede said.
This allowed the trio to visualise the three-dimensional shape of Ho'oleilana -- and the position of the archipelagos of galaxies inside it.
It may be the first, but more bubbles could soon be spotted across the universe.
Europe's Euclid space telescope, which launched into July, takes in a wide view of the universe, potentially enabling it to snare some more bubbles.
Massive radio telescopes called the Square Kilometre Array, being built in South Africa and Australia, could also offer a new image of galaxies from the viewpoint of the Southern Hemisphere, Pomarede said.
M.A.Colin--AMWN