Life is possible because of asymmetries, such as an imbalance between matter and antimatter and the “handedness” (chirality) of molecules.
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Just 12 million light-years away, the galaxies Messier 81 and 82 offer a nearby preview of the Milky Way-Andromeda merger.
The Universe is grand, awe-inspiring, and greater than we likely imagine. Even astrophysicists get anxious thinking about it, but we cope.
Single objects rarely change the course of an entire scientific field. Distant object GNz7q, a galaxy-quasar hybrid, might do exactly that.
Frozen adversity set the stage for an explosion of diversity.
In all of science, no figures have changed the world more than Einstein and Newton. Will anyone ever be as revolutionary again?
There are an estimated two trillion galaxies within the observable Universe. Most are already unreachable, and the situation only gets worse.
As far as we can tell, there’s no limit to how far it goes on; only a limit to how far we can see. Could the Universe truly be infinite?
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Such discoveries help researchers better understand the development of molecular complexity in space during star formation.
On the largest of cosmic scales, the Universe is expanding. But it isn’t all-or-nothing everywhere, as “collapse” is also part of the story.
For some reason, when we talk about the age of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, we use “years” to measure time. Can we do better?
A new discovery pushes back the origin of these technologies by about 40,000 years.
After years of analysis, the Event Horizon Telescope team has finally revealed what the Milky Way’s central black hole looks like.
In the grand scheme of the cosmic story, a single year isn’t all that significant. But over time, the annual changes really add up!
The first stars in the Universe were made of pristine material: hydrogen and helium alone. Once they die, nothing escapes their pollution.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will study many dangerous cosmic phenomena, knowledge of which may help save humanity.
If you think of the Big Bang as an explosion, we can trace it back to a single point-of-origin. But what if it happened everywhere at once?
Move over, IC 1101. You may be impressively large, but you never stood a chance against the largest known galaxy: Alcyoneus.
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?
We thought the Big Bang started it all. Then we realized that something else came before, and it erased everything that existed prior.
The majority of the matter in our Universe isn’t made of any of the particles in the Standard Model. Could the axion save the day?
Embedded in a cell phone or in accessories such as rings, bracelets or watches, the novel tools aim to make it easier to manage hypertension. But they must still pass several tests before hitting the clinic.
To be happy, you have to become antifragile first. Harvard’s Tal Ben-Shahar explains.
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We frequently say it’s 2.725 K: from the light left over all the way from the Big Bang. But that’s not all that’s in the Universe.
The war in Ukraine is unlikely to trigger a catastrophic nuclear meltdown. Physics and smart engineering are the reasons why.
Einstein’s “happiest thought” led to General Relativity’s formulation. Would a different profound insight have led us forever astray?
The theory is accurate within at least one part in a quadrillion.
The true story of the shot that “reverberated through England” when science collided head-on with religion.
Great writing can unveil the criminal psyche better than any other artistic medium.