It’s one thing to find a galaxy that “shouldn’t exist.” It’s quite another to learn why it does. Above a certain size, spiral galaxies shouldn’t exist. A single major merger — where two […]
The darkness of the night sky was a mystery for generations of humans. Here’s the reason why. From our perspective here in the Solar System, it makes absolute intuitive sense why […]
Leap years will only get us through the next few thousand years before we have to fix it. With every year that passes, we assume that two separate things will both […]
There’s so much we don’t know about fast radio bursts and galactic halos. Combined, we get a unique window on the Universe. Deep in space, mysterious signals known as Fast […]
Depending on how you measure it, there are two different answers that could be right. If you want to see what’s out there in the Universe, you first have to be […]
Only one dark matter detection experiment ever gave a positive result, in conflict with all the others. This could be why. For multiple generations now, it’s been apparent to astronomers that […]
How can physics on the smallest scales affect what the Universe does on its largest ones? Cosmic inflation holds the answer. On a macroscopic level, the Universe appears to be entirely […]
A longstanding astronomical gap between neutron stars and black holes is finally coming to a close. Astronomy has taken us so far into the Universe, from beyond Earth to the planets, […]
We still don’t know how it came to be this way. Every once in a while, we find an object in the Universe that completely mystifies us. For generations, astronomers have […]
There are exposed planetary cores orbiting stars, and we may have already found them. When we take a look at the planets in our Solar System, there’s a pretty clear difference […]