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These maps offer a glimpse of what’s been lost – or rather, destroyed – by previous generations.

Richard Feynman wrote a lot of things. Here, you can read his most touching letter.

What is the American Dream? The ever-changing definition of it might surprise you nearly as much as what it used to mean.

For more than 10 billion years, the star-formation rate across the Universe has been plummeting. Here’s the story. Take a look at a wide variety of galaxies in the Universe, and […]

The solar neighborhood is so different than people imagine. But for the first time, we know what it’s like. When you look up at the stars in the night sky, they […]

When you look at the history of it, a strange pattern emerges.

The indirectly find was completely unexpected, and, if it holds up, could give the James Webb Space Telescope its first tantalizing target. In the quest to understand our Universe, and […]

For perhaps 100 million years, there were no stars in the Universe. What was it like then? The earliest stages of the Universe were extraordinarily eventful in bringing us about. Cosmic […]

A rare counter-example to the flood of Temperance maps, this Prohibition-era chart celebrates alcohol in its many forms

There’s a big reason no one, not even Stephen Hawking, could fill Carl Sagan’s shoes. Everyone has a unique story to tell. For scientists, that story is one that usually only […]

From La Rinconada in Peru to South Africa’s deepest mines: the quest for gold drives people to the greatest heights and depths on Earth.

One of astronomy’s most iconic sights in an artifact of faulty optics. Here’s how a new, great design will overcome it. When you look out at the greatest images of the […]

If the bolide had hit just 30 seconds later, we’d be looking at a very different Earth.

They’re less than a billion years old. And, thanks to ALMA, they might finally pave the way to understanding how galaxies form. How do galaxies like our Milky Way come to […]

The first stars formed almost half a billion years before we could see their light. Here’s why. At the moment of the Big Bang, the Universe was full of matter and […]

Even though we’ve never seen them, here’s what we already know. “Suddenly whole new programs open up, things you can do that you could never do before. It’d be great scientifically, […]

The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]

Science can do a whole lot of things, but proving a scientific theory is still an impossibility. You’ve heard of our greatest scientific theories: the theory of evolution, the Big […]

We compiled a list of seven of the greatest public speakers of all time, people who forever changed the course of history with their words.

If you think we’ve seen all there is to see in the Universe, you’re about to have your imagination unlocked. “Hubble often takes images of distant gravitationally lensed galaxies to […]

For just a year’s worth of US Military budget, we could transform the world. The United States spends more on military spending than the next ten nations combined: an estimated $600 […]

Hans Monderman believed that societies could make roads safer by making drivers more uncertain, and therefore alert.

No matter what the science says, there’s no excuse for cruel behavior to a colleague. Look out into the distant Universe as far as you possibly can, and you’ll come […]

From 13.4 billion years ago, the current record-holder is unlikely to fall anytime soon. Why? A combination of science… and luck. “We’ve taken a major step back in time, beyond what […]

There is, and never will be, a substitute for the real knowledge we’ve obtained about the actual Universe. “There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul […]

Most stars obey very similar rules, making them almost entirely predictable. But then, there are the weirdos. Catch this live-blog event to learn more. When we look out at the Universe […]

A live-blog event of an incredible public lecture by a scientist on the inside of James Webb’s team. “The [James Webb] telescope is basically designed to answer the big questions in […]

How gravitational magnification allows us to see what we’ve never seen before. “The problem is, you’re trying to find these really faint things, but you’re looking behind these really bright things. […]

With James Webb and WFIRST launching soon, the Universe can expect a revolution. But what will it look like? “For the first time we can learn about individual stars from near […]

We haven’t found the truly “first” ones yet, but we’re not just on our way; we’re almost there. “For the first time we can learn about individual stars from near the […]