Tesla Inc. directors, including co-founder Elon Musk, agreed to return more than $735 million in stock awards to

Scientists have “heard” a chorus of gravitational waves rippling through the universe, in what they say is an unprecedented finding that could fundamentally change our understanding of the universe. The discovery, described in a range of newly published journal papers, suggests that spacetime is being rocked by intensely powerful gravitational waves all the time. Those waves carry a million times more energy than the one-off bursts of gravitational waves that were detected from a black hole and were themselves hailed as a major breakthrough in our understanding of the universe. The new results suggest that everything is being slowly shrunk and expanded by a new kind of gravitational wave as they pass through our galaxy. Scientists describe it as being akin to hearing a “symphony” of waves echoing through the universe. “It’s like a choir, with all these supermassive black hole pairs chiming in at different frequencies,” said Chiara Mingarelli, a scientist who worked on the new findings while an associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics. “This is the first-ever evidence for the gravitational wave background. We’ve opened a new window of observation on the universe.” The new findings have been described in a range of journal articles, published in different academic journals. The research is the result of 25 years of observations from six of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes, and have been simultaneously published by different collaborations across the world. The findings are not only notable in themselves. They also offer the opportunity to find out some of the universe’s secrets, since they can be used to find information about the binary black holes that form when galaxies merge, for instance. “These results signify the beginning of an exciting journey into the Universe, where we aim to unravel its mysteries,” Michael Keith, a lecturer at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, UK, and contributor to one of the new studies, published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. “After decades of tireless work by hundreds of astronomers and physicists worldwide, we are finally detecting the long-awaited signature of gravitational waves originating from the distant Universe.” Scientists made the discovery by analysing observations of pulsars, which are extinguished stars that can be used as reliable clocks in the distant universe. By bringing together such a large amount of detailed data, researchers were able to measure those pulsars with very high accuracy, allowing them to measure gravitational waves at a far larger scale than using detectors on Earth. “Pulsars are excellent natural clocks. We exploit the remarkable regularity of their signals to detect subtle changes in their rhythm, enabling us to perceive the minute stretching and squeezing of space-time caused by gravitational waves originating from the far reaches of the Universe,” said David Champion, a senior scientist at the MPIfR in Bonn, Germany, and contributor to the study, in a statement. For now, researchers are only able to “hear” the vast choir, rather than the individual pulsars that make up its singers. But together they are much louder than expected, meaning that there may be more or more heavy supermassive black holes to be found in the universe. Read More Astronomers find zombie planet that ‘shouldn’t exist’ Nasa to begin Moon mining within next decade Nasa rover spots bizarre donut shaped rock on Mars

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The war in Ukraine could last for “decades” with long periods of fighting interspersed by truces, one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s most senior aides has predicted. “This conflict will last a very long time, most likely decades,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said during a visit to Vietnam. “As long as there is such a power in place, there will be, say, three years of truce, two years of conflict, and everything will be repeated,” the deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful security council continued, while reiterating Moscow’s claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state. On the frontline, Russia’s Wagner mercenaries have started handing over positions in Bakhmut to the regular Russian military, five days after claiming to have completed the capture of the devastated eastern Ukrainian city. But Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Wagner has only handed over positions on the city’s outskirts and “inside the city itself Wagner fighters remain”. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has said he is ready to return his forces to Bakhmut if the regular army is struggling. Read More Wagner chief launches scathing new attack on Putin’s war strategy Nato chief says Ukraine should not join alliance until Russia’s invasion is over Nobel peace laureate transferred to brutal prison in Belarus, his wife says

"DeSantisland" was likely not the happiest place on Earth on Thursday.

LONDON The largest owner of IKEA stores has acquired supply chain software firm Made4Net as the Swedish furniture

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby emphasized that such language was 'inappropriate' to describe Israel's actions in the ongoing conflict

Elon Musk and China's industry minister discussed ways to develop new energy vehicles Wednesday, a day after the Tesla CEO flew into Beijing and declared he wanted to expand his...

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Food delivery platforms DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats are challenging in court New York City's new minimum wage law for app food delivery workers.

FIFA has suspended Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales from office while its disciplinary committee investigates his conduct at the Women’s World Cup which included kissing a player without her consent

For all the talk of protecting quarterbacks, refs in the Bills vs. Eagles game decided not to flag Haasan Reddick for a blatant horsecollar tackle on Josh Allen.