Did the Milky Way form by slowly accreting matter or by devouring its neighboring galaxies? At last, we’re uncovering our own history.
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These Roman Emperors were infamous for their debauchery and cruelty.
Until about a decade ago, only two habitable zone planets of any size were known to astronomers: Earth and Mars.
We know it couldn’t have began from a singularity. So how small could it have been at the absolute minimum?
Researchers from Japan add a new wrinkle to a popular theory and set the stage for the formation of monstrous black holes.
If you think that the Moon is only good for reflecting sunlight, you’ve got another think coming. To human eyes, the Moon is the second brightest visible object, trailing only the […]
We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]
It’s 100 years since astronomy’s famous ‘great debate.’ We still haven’t learned the most compelling lesson of all. So, you’ve arrived at a crossroads: you think the world works in a […]
The majority of the matter in our Universe isn’t made of any of the particles in the Standard Model. Could the axion save the day?
After 13.8 billion years, there’s still a whole lot that’s changing as time goes on. With each new year that comes upon us, there are a slew of new events awaiting […]
It happened 13.8 billion years ago, so why hasn’t the radiation all passed over us by now? For the past 13.8 billion years, our Universe has been expanding, cooling, and gravitating. […]
Astronomers spot periodic lights coming from near the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
One woman’s viral roadmap from fear to learning to growth.
On May 9, 2016, the prior transit of Mercury occurred, and was photographed many times on a practically continuous basis by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Transits of Mercury are rare, […]
NASA’s SOFIA mission is upgraded and back in action, and the Cigar Galaxy makes a perfect target. In theory, cold, neutral gas is the key to stars and galaxies. A visualization […]
Unless you plan to try again in 6,800 years, this week is your shot.
Anastasia lives alone in perfect harmony with nature – or so the story goes – and nature serves her devotedly.
The successor to Hubble is almost ready for launch. It’s really coming this year, too! NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, originally proposed in the 1990s, is finally slated to launch later […]
A few years ago, the first dark matter-free galaxies were announced, and then immediately disputed. Now, there are too many to ignore.
If you want flexibility, transparency, and decent health policies, it seems like working in tech pays off.
It’s a supergiant star in the final stage of its life, and it just dimmed by an enormous amount. What’s going on? When you take a look at the stars in […]
On Friday, the moon will pass through the Earth’s outer shadow, known as the penumbra.
Big dreams and big telescopes are back at last, but everything depends on sufficiently funding NASA, the NSF, and the DOE.
An amateur astronomer discovers an interstellar comet on its way to our Sun.
It’s that the Universe can be understood at all. Don’t deafen yourself to its lessons. In a nutshell, 2020 has been a unique year in human history. For the first time […]
There’s a million things we haven’t done. But just you wait. The Universe as we know it began some 13.8 billion years ago with the onset of the hot Big Bang. […]
If you think ‘particles are matter’ and ‘antiparticles are antimatter,’ think again. In this Universe, there are certain rules that have never been observed to be broken. Some of these […]
Phobos and Deimos only have two explanations, and neither one adds up.
The view from beyond Pluto is far enough from Earth that we can see the stars shift. NASA’s New Horizons, humanity’s first spacecraft to encounter Pluto, is more than 4.3 billion […]
Astrophysicist Michelle Thaller talks ISS and why NICER is so important.
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