In 1612, Galileo was shocked as to why Saturn’s “appendages” had disappeared. It wasn’t until later that century that the mystery was solved: Saturn has rings, and when Earth crosses […]
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It’s a huge surprise, and shows up in the most unlikely of places! “You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the […]
Anant Agrawal is the president of edX, an online learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT. As Bill Clinton said at the Global Education & Skills Forum, it’s important to […]
At the top of the Teapot, a fantastic cluster dotted with Red Giants awaits. Image credit: © 2005–2009 by Rainer Sparenberg, via http://www.airglow.de/html/starclusters/m28.html. “The most difficult thing is the decision […]
Look up after sunset for the most reliable meteor shower of the year: the Perseids, and learn where they come from! Image credit: Michael Menefee (Fort Photo on flickr), via […]
What is at the heart of an active galaxy? Researchers believe that massive black holes millions of times more massive than our sun comprise galactic cores, according to NASA. This […]
It’s not “particularly” any one characteristic, and that makes it a rarity worth looking at. “Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will […]
From asteroids to planets to stars and more, doubling what you’ve got can be disastrous! “Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double […]
There have been many supernovae in the Milky Way seen over the past 2,000 years, but nobody ever saw the most recent ones! Image credit: NASA/CXC/NCSU/K.Borkowski et al. “When I […]
From 30,000 feet above sea level, why aren’t the stars visible from an airplane? “Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free […]
It used to be commonly believed that the human nose can pick up 10,000 odors. We were wrong “by a factor of a hundred million,” according to The Washington Post. […]
Prejudiced and non-prejudiced people are equally likely to fall victim to the other-race effect.
If so, why, and if not, why does it feel that way? “The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.” –Don Herold With the seasons about to turn to […]
At the bottom of the teapot in Sagittarius, the ancient giants burn for your pleasure. Image credit: REU program / NOAO / AURA / NSF. “I told my father that […]
How do we know how old the most distant objects we see actually are? “Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back […]
“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” Frank Sinatra warbled in “My Way,” before adding wistfully, “But, then again, too few to mention.” Sinatra sang that song at the end of a […]
An ancient relic from the young Universe is covered in surprising riches near the galactic center. Image credit: Paul Chasse (astronewb11) of flickr, via https://www.flickr.com/photos/astronewb2011/7247070648/. “Ancients knew that you need […]
The farther north you are, the harder this wonder is to see. But oh, the rewarding sights for those who find it! Image credit: Emi; Ivamov, via http://www.emilivanov.com/CCD%20Images/M06_LRGB.htm. “Happiness is […]
They’re one of the great undetected predictions of dark matter, and we may have just found the first ones! “Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest […]
Through a telescope, this swarm of star appears extremely oblate. But is it really? Image credit: via http://vilagbiztonsag.hu/keptar/displayimage.php?album=19&pid=19138. “If I take dust in my hand and ask you if that […]
This is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. It’s a time to celebrate what has been learned and to push the process further along. There is no screening test to diagnose Parkinson’s disease […]
Ever wonder why they stand on one leg? Surprisingly, physics holds the answer! “Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? […]
Even for city dwellers, the wonders of a dark, night sky might be closer than you imagine. “Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” –Walt Whitman It was just […]
In 1887, two scientists set out to measure how the speed of light changed with the Earth’s motion. What they *didn’t* find wound up changing the world. “The conclusions, the bizarre […]
What’s a good scientist to do when your theory predicts something absurd? “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass […]
Nobody goes to a baseball game to watch the umpires, so why would someone go to a museum to see an exhibition dedicated to an art critic—one of those arbiters […]
General relativity sure does make some counterintuitive predictions. “They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.”–Steven Wright Each week on Ask Ethan, I take a dive […]
There is only one place in our solar system with stable liquid lakes and seas on its surface, besides planet Earth. Saturn’s moon Titan is this place.
“The broken places are my canvases,” Artist Lily Yeh says in the documentary The Barefoot Artist. “People’s stories are my pigments. People’s talents and imaginations are the instruments. I began […]
“If all you do is mock the people who disagree with you, you miss your chance to honestly engage with them, learn about where they come from, and — just maybe — teach them a little piece of something that they might not have known before.”