The laws of physics are not time-reversal invariant. Here’s how we know. No matter when, where, or what you are in the Universe, you experience time in only one direction: forwards. […]
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While Mars is known as a frozen, red planet today, it has all the evidence we could ask for of a watery past, lasting for approximately the first 1.5 billion […]
There is a fundamental difference between matter and antimatter. But not enough of one to explain our Universe. Our Universe is a vast and enormous place, and if there’s one […]
The Leonid meteor shower peaks today. Its parent comet taught us where meteor showers come from. Every year, as Earth regularly orbits the Sun, meteor showers repeatedly recur. While August’s Perseids […]
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. […]
The most massive nearby stars could be the seeds our supermassive black holes need. The problem with the Universe, as we see it today, is that we only get a snapshot […]
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 […]
One often-neglected result of climate change is ocean acidification. If this process continues, we may start to see fewer fish and more jellyfish.
Even if you remove everything you can from the Universe, some energy will still remain. Here’s what that means. Imagine, if you can, what it would mean to have a Universe […]
Debris from Pluto-sized collisions, not aliens, are streaming through the galaxy. In 2017, scientists discovered an object passing through our Solar System that was unlike anything else we had ever seen. […]
Remember the announcement of a galaxy with no dark matter? It’s just been re-examined, with astounding results. In theory, all galaxies should contain copious amounts of dark matter, with one […]
Entropy always increases, but that doesn’t mean it was zero to start with. One of the most inviolable laws in the Universe is the second law of thermodynamics: that in any […]
If economic growth knowingly increases mass-scale suffering, can we stop chasing it?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own […]
It’s one way to interpret recent X-ray data, but it conflicts with much, much better data we already have. Earlier this month, a new study came out claiming something shocking: perhaps […]
The blob that's astonishing science gets its own exhibit.
Preventable deaths for all five leading mortality causes are "consistently higher" in rural communities.
Your microbiome begins in your mouth. Why don't we look there more often?
Black holes are regions of extreme gravity, but dark matter barely interacts at all. Do they play well together? Black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the […]
As we embrace green solutions, nuclear should absolutely be part of the equation. For thousands upon thousands of years, humans have been harnessing the power of nature to provide energy […]
It contains more water than all the Great Lakes combined, and the science of our planet explains why. Although practically all of Earth’s human population lives on dry land, our surface […]
Researchers evaluated the best and worst ways to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in a recent report.
Without this one ingredient, there wouldn’t be enough ‘glue’ to hold the Universe together. Of all the things in the Universe to be thankful for — the stars, planets, atoms, molecules, and […]
As soon as you start thinking about energy and gravity, you’ll realize the need to go beyond it. When it comes to a science like physics, theoretical expectations must always be […]
Maybe, but that probably doesn’t mean what you think it does. Of all the unsolved puzzles in the Universe, perhaps the most confounding is the dark matter problem. If we look […]
Once only dark energy remains, empty space still won’t be completely empty. Imagine, if you dare, the very end of the Universe. The stars — past, present, and future — have all burned out. […]
Traveling interstellar distances in human lifetimes is an amazing dream, but it won’t ever be achieved like this. For centuries, ever since we realized that every star we can see in […]
NASA's intrepid Curiosity rolls upward into Mars history.
There are three possible ways we’ll find alien life. With all of these chances, the only question is which will come first. Given everything humanity has learned about the Universe, it […]
A passenger on a California freeway shot a video of a Tesla driver dozing off at the wheel.
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