Ben Turner
Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like weird animals and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
Latest articles by Ben Turner
James Webb telescope finds ancient galaxy larger than our Milky Way, and it's threatening to upend cosmology
By Ben Turner published
Astronomers believe the first galaxies formed around giant halos of dark matter. But a newly discovered galaxy dating to roughly 13 billion years ago mysteriously appeared long before that process should have occurred.
Quantum batteries could charge faster by scrambling the rules of cause and effect
By Ben Turner published
Batteries could charge up by relying on a quantum effect known as indefinite causal order, whereby the laws of cause and effect are scrambled and power can move through the system quicker.
Unexpected cosmic clumping could disprove our best understanding of the universe
By Ben Turner published
The new study of galaxies, centered around a value for cosmic lumpiness known as S8, could join the Hubble tension in dethroning our best picture of how the universe evolved.
After 2 years in space, the James Webb Space Telescope has broken cosmology. Can it be fixed?
By Ben Turner published
For decades, measurements of the universe's expansion have suggested a disparity, which threatens to break cosmology as we know it. The James Webb Space Telescope is looking at it.
James Webb Space Telescope may have found the oldest black hole in the universe
By Ben Turner published
The James Webb Space Telescope's discovery of the universe's oldest black holes is giving astronomers some vital clues for how they came to be.
'Missing' blob of water predicted to be in the Atlantic finally found
By Ben Turner published
The newly discovered water mass, called the Atlantic Equatorial Water, stretches from Brazil to West Africa.
Google's DeepMind AI can make better weather forecasts than supercomputers
By Ben Turner published
DeepMind's new machine learning algorithm takes less than a minute to make its forecasts and can run on a desktop. But it won't replace traditional forecasts anytime soon.
NASA and Japan to launch world's 1st wooden satellite as soon as 2024. Why?
By Ben Turner published
The magnolia wood LignoSat is an attempt to make space junk biodegradable. NASA and Japan's space agency (JAXA) could launch it as soon as 2024.
James Webb Space Telescope finds an 'extreme' glow coming from 90% of the universe's earliest galaxies
By Ben Turner published
The universe's early galaxies are way brighter than they should be. The James Webb Space Telescope's discovery of brightly glowing gas around 90% of primordial galaxies may explain why.
Gulf Stream weakening now 99% certain, and ramifications will be global
By Ben Turner published
A new analysis has concluded that the Gulf Stream is definitely slowing, but whether it's due to climate change is hard to tell.
China is building the world's largest underwater telescope to hunt for elusive 'ghost particles'
By Ben Turner published
China's forthcoming Tropical Deep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT) will search for the origins of cosmic rays in momentary flashes of light beneath the ocean's surface.
Nobel Prize in physics awarded to 3 scientists who glimpsed the inner world of atoms with tiny light pulses
By Ben Turner published
The trio devised methods for creating the tiniest slices of light.
Mammals may be driven to extinction by volcanic new supercontinent Pangaea Ultima
By Ben Turner published
The next supercontinent, Pangea Ultima, is likely to get so hot so quickly that mammals cannot adapt, a new supercomputer simulation has forecast.
Our entire galaxy is warping, and a gigantic blob of dark matter could be to blame
By Ben Turner published
An invisible halo of misaligned dark matter could explain the warps at the Milky Way's edges.
New Horizon Prize in Physics awarded to scientists chasing mysterious black hole photon spheres
By Ben Turner published
Alexandru Lupsasca and Michael Johnson won the physics prize for their work on photon spheres — weird rings of light around black holes that may reveal a theory of quantum gravity.
$100,000 Breakthrough physics prize awarded to 3 scientists who study the large scale structure of the universe
By Ben Turner published
Mikhail Ivanov, Oliver Philcox, and Marko Simonović won the New Horizons Award for their work on large scale structures — the strands and filaments of our universe which contain buried clues to its most fundamental properties.
India's lunar lander finds 1st evidence of a moonquake in decades
By Ben Turner published
The possible moonquake was detected by India's Chandrayaan-3 mission on its third day on the lunar surface.
Enormous fireball meteor turns the sky over Turkey green in eerie viral video
By Ben Turner published
A stunning bright-green fireball was captured by a phone camera in a playground in Turkey.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission almost bit the dust — then Queen guitarist Brian May stepped in
By Ben Turner published
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will soon return to Earth. What's on board could reveal the extraterrestrial origins of life on Earth.
Scientists discover strange 'singularities' responsible for exotic type of superconductivity
By Ben Turner published
Superconductors that work at temperatures much higher than absolute zero have befuddled scientists since they were discovered. A new theory might be about to change that.
Quantum 'yin-yang' shows two photons being entangled in real-time
By Ben Turner published
The stunning experiment, which reconstructs the properties of entangled photons from a 2D interference pattern, could be used to design faster quantum computers.
Bizarre 'demon' particle found inside superconductor could help unlock a 'holy grail' of physics
By Ben Turner published
The transparent, chargeless quasiparticle could shed more light on the underlying mechanics of superconductivity
Wobbling muon experiment could reveal a 5th force of nature — if the results hold up
By Ben Turner published
The discovery promises to spark a revolution in physics, but more results are needed to know for sure.