What will it take to conquer our immemorial space dream?
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What took hundreds of millions of years to create is being wasted on… party balloons? There’s a natural resource found beneath Earth’s surface that’s been building up for hundreds of […]
Physicists sure do give counterintuitive names to the things they find. Most of us are confounded by the idea of relativity when we first encounter it. Objects don’t just move through […]
If an AT-AT walker (or something even larger) wanted to walk across a frozen lake, how thick would the ice have to be? Each winter, one of the most spectacular phenomena […]
Some claim that inflation isn’t science, but it sure has made some incredibly successful scientific predictions. So, you want to know how the Universe began? You’re not alone. Every other […]
China’s Chang’e 4 biosphere experiment marks a first for humankind.
Despite what you may have heard, they don’t suck anything in at all. Black holes are some of the strangest, most wondrous objects in all the Universe. With huge amounts of […]
Dark matter is our leading theory for a reason. New, detailed studies of the smallest galaxies could kill off the most studied alternative. When you look out at the Universe, […]
A new computer model solves a pair of Jovian riddles.
30 years later, a new investigative documentary on Bob Lazar’s claims about Area 51 raises some ghosts, some hell, and some unsettling questions.
A new NASA report shakes up lunar geology.
Three scientists publish a paper proving that Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth.
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One of Stephen Hawking’s predictions seems to have been borne out in a man-made “black hole.”
Somehow, the Universe began with just the right mix of cosmic ingredients to make life possible. It sure doesn’t seem likely. When you take stock of what’s in the Universe on […]
Dark matter’s naysayers latched onto one tiny puzzle. This new find may have solved it completely. Imagine the largest cosmic smashup you can. Take the largest gravitationally bound structures we […]
Some galaxies might not have any dark matter. Here’s why you should care. There are two assumptions that everyone makes about the Universe for extremely good reasons, but they might not […]
The coin depicts a black hole and one of the late physicist’s most important formulas.
The laws of physics are not time-reversal invariant. Here’s how we know. No matter when, where, or what you are in the Universe, you experience time in only one direction: forwards. […]
If you think about the way a gravitational wave detector works, you might encounter a paradox. Here’s the solution. One of the greatest scientific achievements in all of human history […]
LIGO, here on Earth, has exquisitely-precise distances its lasers travel. With three spacecrafts in motion, how could LISA work? Since it began operating in 2015, advanced LIGO has ushered in an […]
When the Universe expands, photons redshift to longer wavelengths and lower energies. So where does that energy go? Imagine the ultimate version of a toy Universe: it’s expanding, it’s full of […]
At the core of the largest star-forming region of the Local Group sits the biggest star we know of. Mass is the single most important astronomical property in determining the lives […]
“Dinner and drinks” may take on a new, more provocative meaning.
In theory, we could use high-energy lasers to make our own artificial black holes, potentially capturing the enormous energy they emit.
Theoretical work tells you where to look, but only experiments can reveal what you’ll find. There are fundamental mysteries out there about the nature of the Universe itself, and it’s our […]
Has the mystery really been solved? Doubtful. The real science goes much deeper. For perhaps the last year or so, a small galaxy located not too far away has captivated the […]
A longstanding astronomical gap between neutron stars and black holes is finally coming to a close. Astronomy has taken us so far into the Universe, from beyond Earth to the planets, […]