If you want to know what the Universe is like, you have to look at it in the right way. Only by observing it can we know what the Universe is […]
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Leading a scientific revolution is easy: you just have to succeed where the current theory fails while equaling its successes. Good luck!
A new study shows that the Bernardinelli-Bernstein Comet is much larger than previously thought — potentially the largest ever spotted.
Oxygen is thought to be a biomarker for extraterrestrial life, but there are at least three different ways that a lifeless planet can produce it.
Galaxies can die if their star-making stuff is lost. But now it can find its way back.
50% of stars are in Sun-like ‘singlet’ systems. The planetary nebulae we see just don’t line up. Around 7 billion years from now, our Sun’s life will end. As the Sun […]
In 1920, astronomers debated the nature of the Universe. The results were meaningless until years later, when the key evidence arrived.
Scientific surprises, driven by experiment, are often how science advances. But more often than not, they’re just bad science.
Gravitation, all on its own, can reveal what’s present in the cosmos like nothing else.
Although the Big Bang occurred at an instant in time long ago, we still see the light from it. Will the evidence ever disappear completely?
One galaxy may have eaten one of its slightly smaller, more primitive neighbors.
In the night sky for March of 2022, only stars and the Moon, not planets, will greet you. The real show, however, arrives just before dawn.
When the Universe was first born, the ingredients necessary for life were nowhere to be found. Only our “lucky stars” enabled our existence.
The “first cause” problem may forever remain unsolved, as it doesn’t fit with the way we do science.
The newly discovered galaxies are 62 times bigger than the Milky Way.
The boiling new world, which zips around its star at ultraclose range, is among the lightest exoplanets found to date.
All forms of energy affect the expanding Universe. But if matter and radiation slow the expansion down, how does dark energy speed it up?
The giant impact theory suggests our Moon was formed from proto-Earth getting a Mars-sized strike. An exoplanet system shows it’s plausible.
We can do so much more, so much faster, with the same data. When you think about how astronomy works, you probably think about observers pointing telescopes at objects, collecting data […]
Back during the hot Big Bang, it wasn’t just charged particles and photons that were created, but also neutrinos. Where are they now?
It’s last “hard” test is over. Now, we wait for its launch. Despite numerous delays, funding crises, and technical challenges, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is almost ready. The science instruments […]
JWST has brought us more distant views of the early Universe than ever before. Is the Big Bang, and all of modern cosmology, in trouble?
If you look into a mirror, you’ll notice that left-and-right are reversed, but up-and-down is preserved. The reason isn’t what you think.
We confidently state that the Universe is known to be 13.8 billion years old, with an uncertainty of just 1%. Here’s how we know.
The Earth that exists today wasn’t formed simultaneously with the Sun and the other planets. In some ways, we’re quite a latecomer.
The closest star system to Earth, just over 4 light-years away, has three stars and at least one Earth-sized planet. Is it time to go there?
Telescopes from the ground are bigger, but have to fight the atmosphere. Here’s how to win. In astronomy, seeing farther and fainter than ever before requires three simultaneous approaches. First light, […]
By the end of the decade, we may discover one million black holes. A large enough mass in a compact volume inevitably forms a black hole. Both inside and outside the […]
We pretend to be in control, but we have frighteningly little knowledge upon which to base our life’s decisions.
Sun-like stars live for around 10 billion years, but our Universe is only 13.8 billion years old. So what’s the maximum lifetime for a star?