The Universe didn’t begin with a bang, but with an inflationary “whoosh” that came before. Here are the biggest questions that still remain.
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DUNE is designed to detect the Universe’s most antisocial particle: the neutrino.
In the infant Universe, particle physics reigned supreme.
There was a time where no starlight was visible throughout the entire cosmos. That time was short-lived: shorter than astronomers imagined.
Today, the deepest depths of intergalactic space aren’t at absolute zero, but at a chill 2.73 K. How does that temperature change over time?
A new measurement offers insights on the density of the mysterious force driving the Universe’s expansion.
The Universe isn’t just expansion, but the expansion itself is accelerating. So why can’t we feel it in any measurable way?
The Universe’s history, from cosmic inflation to the Big Bang to the present, is known. But whether it’s infinite or not is still a mystery.
A recent experiment challenges the leading dark matter theory and hints at new directions for uncovering one of the Universe’s biggest mysteries.
Although human beings arrived on Earth just ~300,000 years ago, we’ve transformed the entire planet completely. Here’s how we did it.
Despite billions of years of life on Earth, humans first arose only ~300,000 years ago. It took all that time to make our arrival possible.
Although mammals may be the dominant form of life today, we’re relative newcomers on planet Earth. Here’s our place in natural history.
For billions of years on Earth, life was limited to simple unicellular, non-differentiated organisms. In a mere flash, that changed forever.
Known as the Great Oxygenation Event, Earth froze over as oxygen accumulated in our atmosphere, nearly driving all life extinct.
What do ghosts and anomalous galaxy rotation rates have in common? Some sci-fi enthusiasts believe the answer involves “parallel universes.”
Although early Earth was a molten hellscape, once it cooled, life arose almost immediately. That original chain of life remains unbroken.
With a massive, charged nucleus orbited by tiny electrons, atoms are such simple objects. Miraculously, they make up everything we know.
The combination of charge conjugation, parity, and time-reversal symmetry is known as CPT. And it must never be broken. Ever.
Earth wasn’t created until more than 9 billion years after the Big Bang. In some lucky places, life could have arisen almost right away.
If the Universe is expanding, and the expansion is accelerating, what does that tell us about the cause of the expanding Universe?
What drives the universe’s expansion? Chemist Lee Cronin explains the theories linking time, space, and selection, providing a fresh perspective on this cosmic mystery.
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Here’s what recent DESI measurements suggest — and why it’s too early to update conventional predictions about the Universe’s distant future.
In all directions, at great distances, the Universe looks younger, more uniform, and less evolved. Does that mean Earth must be the center?
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, going back to the hot Big Bang. But was that truly the beginning, and is that truly its age?
From before the Big Bang to Voyager 1, particle physicist Harry Cliff takes us on a whiz-bang tour of the Universe’s evolution.
When the hot Big Bang first occurred, the Universe reached a maximum temperature never recreated since. What was it like back then?
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe became hot, dense, and filled with high-energy quanta all at once. Here’s what it was like.
Cosmic inflation is the state that preceded and set up the hot Big Bang. Here’s what the Universe was like during that time period.
Despite many ultra-distant galaxy candidates found with JWST, we still haven’t seen anything from the Universe’s first 250 million years.
Holograms preserve all of an object’s 3D information, but on a 2D surface. Could the holographic Universe idea lead us to higher dimensions?