Almost a decade remains before the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope sees first light, and construction has yet to begin on most of the telescope’s hardware. Even so, astrophysicists are already developing methods for analyzing the rush of data LSST wi... Continue reading →

A new system that would use bent crystals to remove errant particles in the Large Hadron Collider passed a major test last month by surviving a barrage of protons at high energy. Continue reading →

When Virginia high school teacher Deborah Roudebush teaches physics, she doesn't exactly follow the book. In one of her more memorable lessons, she gives her students a stopwatch and a ruler and sets a toy pig flying around the classroom. The students ... Continue reading →

In its four years in orbit, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a cosmos teeming with points of gamma-ray light. Newly discovered gamma-ray sources run the gamut from the expected, like supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei, to the su... Continue reading →

Particle colliders do not keep normal working hours. They must be tended to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, holidays included. Few people know this as well as the family of Robert “Obie” Oberholtzer, a talented engineer whom crews at Fermilab wo... Continue reading →

Physicist Sam Hewamanage woke up, got ready and made his usual 15-minute drive to work. He parked his car, walked inside and sat at his workstation before digging into his primary task for the day: monitoring a particle detector located 100 meters unde... Continue reading →

On Friday night, Nov. 16, about 1000 people came out to Fermilab to see five physicists duke it out... with science. The occasion was the laboratory's first ever physics slam. A physics slam is kind of like a poetry slam—the five contestants were giv... Continue reading →

If you hurl two oranges together at close to the speed of light, there’s going to be a lot of pulp. But, somewhere in the gooey mess will be the rare splinters left over from two seeds colliding. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN works in a similar w... Continue reading →