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These scientists scooped up the Nobel by detecting a ripple in space-time.

There’s another safe way to observe the “Great American Eclipse,” too.   

More massive is bigger, less massive is smaller, right? That’s not even half the story. “Billions of years from now our sun, then a distended red giant star, will have reduced […]

The truth might not be ‘out there’ at all. There may never have been another intelligent, technologically advanced alien species in the entire history of the Universe. When you take into […]

It isn’t just for merging neutron stars, anymore. Over the past three years, there’s arguably been no greater scientific discovery than the direct detection of gravitational waves. The two LIGO […]

The aptly named ‘Fireworks galaxy’ just had its tenth supernova in the past century, setting a record. Learn how to see it! “When a massive star explodes at the end of […]

Alpha Centauri A and B are just 4.37 light years away. Do they have planets around them? And possibly life? We just might find out! “Resources exist to be consumed. And […]

Its 18 large, segmented golden mirrors aren’t even the whole story. But how much gold is really in there? “Hey, if our eyes could access the infrared part of the light […]

Totality is a time to look at the eclipsed Sun, enjoy, and marvel at it. But for photographers, there’s even more in store. “Having totality means being capable of following ‘what […]

If nothing can escape from beneath the event horizon, where do these phenomena come from? The most important feature of a black hole is that it has an event horizon: a […]

You might think that it should be all black, but then how would we see it? “It is conceptually interesting, if not astrophysically very important, to calculate the precise apparent shape […]

Five independent images point to an incredible, single story, but the mystery of how it was created still remains. “The origin and evolution of life are connected in the most intimate […]

Something’s got to be wrong. But is it what we think about the star, the Universe, or something else? “The older you get, the more you realize that the way […]

Astronomers have gotten good at dating stars. But this one has them stumped.   

Researchers are beginning to understand the relationship between black holes and galaxies.   

NASA scientists are sifting through some of the last transmissions from Cassini. And what they’re finding are kittens. You read that right.

Even with the greatest telescopes imaginable, there are billions of light years with nothing recognizable by today’s standards. “Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory […]

Northwestern University researchers discover the unexpected origins of half the atoms in our bodies.

The most elusive naked-eye planet is downright impossible to view for billions of us on Earth. “I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without […]

It isn’t flat, and these simple observations that you can make from the ground can demonstrate it to anyone. From any one location on the surface of the Earth, it’s impossible […]

Just because it isn’t Thanksgiving anymore doesn’t mean we don’t have an entire Universe to be thankful for. Every day, we have a choice whether we take our lives, our existence, […]

Last week, Cassini plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere. Here are the top 6 things we learned from it while it was alive. “Being a scientist and staring immensity and eternity in the […]

Are we about to make a breakthrough to go beyond black holes? Here’s what it means if we do! “It’s becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only […]

Is our existence base reality—or are we pawns in a matrix? Cognitive scientist Joscha Bach explains how we might be able to tell.

This research may help us develop diamonds for products and better understand nuclear fusion.   

Think the periodic table is complicated? Now learn how each element in it was created. “It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order […]

We may use superlatives all the time, but that’s no substitute for quantifying just how bad, big, or important something is. This article was written by Kimberly Arcand and Megan […]

If nature makes equal amounts of matter and antimatter, how are we here? When you look out at the vastness of the Universe, at the planets, stars, galaxies, and all there […]

ORBITER was in the path of totality for the solar eclipse, and on our way, we were joking about which of us might scream. Turns out, how could you not?

Would there be only blackness past the event horizon? Or something more? Black holes are some of the most perplexing objects in the entire Universe. Objects so dense, where gravitation […]