Public Broadcasting for Northwest Indiana & Chicagoland since 1987
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

What If the Cosmological Constant Is Not Constant?

Season 10 Episode 23 | 15m 14s

We know that the universe is getting bigger. And we know that the speed that the universe is getting bigger is also getting bigger. The standard assumption is that the acceleration rate is itself constant, which will result in ultimate heat death. But a recent survey of primordial sound waves frozen into the way galaxies are sprinkled through the universe reveals that this fate is now in question.

Aired: 10/09/24
Gigantic black holes existed in a cosmic eyeblink after the Big Bang. That should be impossible.
A decade later, a leading theory may finally explain Tabby’s Star, the galaxy’s weirdest star.
LIGO may have found an impossible black hole, hinting at primordial relics from the Big Bang.
DESI and DES studied dark energy. Together, what can they tell us?
Could sending a quantum twin across the galaxy make you both old and young at the same time?
It's possible that an event horizon is forming right behind and you won't know until its too late.
Are there no alien signals to find... or do we need to update how we search for them?
Physicists hope Planck stars can save us from black hole singularities and paradoxes.
Galaxies older than the universe? Webb's findings keep defying our best explanations.
Earth's core: solid or liquid? Yes — we know more about distant galaxies than our own interior.