Which big bang? Rival theories of the universe’s birth
(Image: Mehau Kulyk/SPL/Getty Images)
http://www.newscientist.com/special/big-bang
Big bang, big bounce and inflating bubbles: stretch your mind around the expanding cosmos with New Scientist‘s in-depth coverage of how everything began
TOP STORIES
The big bang
Fifteen thousand million years ago, the universe that we inhabit erupted, literally, out of nothing. Everything – all matter, energy, even space and time – came into being at that precise instant
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Inside inflation: after the big bang
Without it the universe would fit on a pin head, yet this crucial event remains an enigma. Cosmologist Peter Coles gets to grips with inflation
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Cycles of creation
Our universe may be stuck in an endless loop of death and rebirth. It’s an old idea, says Marcus Chown, but the strange power of nothingness has given it a new lease of life
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Exploring Stephen Hawking’s Flexiverse
The history of the cosmos has yet to be decided. At last, a chance to play God
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Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?
What if our universe didn’t emerge from nothing, but is a recycled version of one that went before? Anil Ananthaswamy investigates
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Big bang, part 2: the second inflation
A boiling, bubble-ridden universe and a second period of inflation could have preceded the formation of atoms
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Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event
The big bang may not have been the beginning of everything – but new calculations suggest we still need a cosmic starter gun
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VIDEO
How the universe appeared from nothing

Watch our animated explainer to find out how something can emerge from nothing
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COSMOLOGY
Astrophile: Loner galaxy is seed of giant black hole
16:49 13 July 2012
The antisocial tendencies of galaxy NGC 4178 could help us understand how the largest black holes form
Dark matter underpinnings of cosmic web found
IN BRIEF: 18:00 04 July 2012 | 6 comments
The dark matter skeleton that holds together the cosmic web of matter has been detected for the first time
Humble DNA could help decipher dark matter
THIS WEEK: 15:41 02 July 2012
With large and expensive dark-matter experiments disagreeing on what they are seeing, help could come from a few strands of DNA
What kind of bang was the big bang?
COVER STORY: 08:00 02 July 2012 | 28 comments
There’s trouble at the start of time: the theory of cosmic inflation has got way out of control. Can quantum theory and holograms tame it, asks Amanda Gefter
Astrophile: Exoplanetary bedfellows make odd couple
19:00 21 June 2012
A hot Neptune and a super Earth are locked in an embrace – but how did two wildly different worlds get so close?
Astrophile: Runaway is star of cosmic whodunnit
16:05 15 June 2012
A ménage à trois gone horribly wrong, an innocent bystander and a fleeing fugitive: these all helped solve the mystery of the Becklin-Neugebauer object
Black holes could act as cosmic Rosetta stones
THIS WEEK: 10:00 14 June 2012
A mathematical makeover means these strange objects could be used to translate between gravity and quantum mechanics
Cosmic climate change may have stunted black holes
IN BRIEF: 10:00 09 June 2012 | 1 comment
A warming of the early universe caused by the greediest of black holes could have stunted the growth of the rest
Neutrinos don’t outpace light, but they do shape-shift
17:20 08 June 2012 | 5 comments
OPERA collaboration reports second-ever instance of a muon neutrino morphing into a tau neutrino
Hawking’s ‘Escher-verse’ could be theory of everything
THIS WEEK: 18:00 06 June 2012 | 44 comments
Stephen Hawking has come up with a way to describe the universe that suggests it may have the same geometry as mind-boggling images by M. C. Escher
Dark matter, dark energy, dark… magnetism?
COVER STORY: 08:00 04 June 2012 | 6 comments
There is a new suspect in the search for the mysterious force ripping apart the cosmos, says Stephen Battersby
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