By Peter Weiss
From Albuquerque, N.M., at a meeting of the American Physical Society and American Astronomical Society
When galaxies merge, an explosion of new star formation takes place. Something analogous is happening at the intersection of particle physics and astronomy, according to a new report from the National Research Council in Washington, D.C. Not stars, but stellar science is bursting from that boundary, and the payoff is likely to include new knowledge about the nature of the universe.