A star orbiting past our galaxy’s supermassive black hole offered a chance to test relativity as never before. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is the […]
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It’s all about the feeding window.
A new paradigm for machine vision has just been demonstrated.
The NSF’s new, cutting-edge solar observatory shows us the Sun as never before. Here’s why we need to know. On December 12, 2019, the world’s most powerful solar observatory — the National Science […]
Yet, if they only obey the rules that we know, there’s no way to explain why. One of the greatest puzzles in all of physics is that the laws of nature — as […]
With the coronavirus pandemic upending summer plans, now’s the perfect time to learn something new.
We’re one step closer to solving the mystery of how they get so big so fast. A great cosmic mystery for science is explaining how supermassive black holes form. An ultra-distant […]
Mathematics is the most useful tool we have for understanding the Universe. But it doesn’t answer to anything on its own. At the frontiers of theoretical physics, many of the most […]
If your Universe contains any matter at all, a constant Hubble parameter is absolutely impossible. Our observable Universe is an enormous place, with some two trillion galaxies strewn across the […]
The quest for the ultimate vacuum just got taken to the next level thanks to a new technique: the quantum squeezer. One of the most understated frontiers in all of […]
Sure, cosmic inflation has its detractors. But it also has something no alternative possesses: predictions and tests. Perhaps the most compelling part of any remarkable story is its origin: how it […]
Google’s “Year in Search 2020” results reveal a year when “why” was searched more than ever.
Americans consume the most toilet paper in the world but it’s a very wasteful product to manufacture, according to the numbers.
And which ones are probably examples where we’ve fooled ourselves? Every once in a while — multiple times per year — a new research finding fails to line up with our theoretical expectations. In […]
2019 offers an outstanding selection of books, accessories, and much more for the science-lover in your life! With each passing year, a whole slew of new scientific discoveries, refinements, and improvements […]
The future of cities on the Moon, Mars and orbital habitats.
Scientists discover the inner workings of an effect that will lead to a new generation of devices.
Find a clear western horizon after sunset, and this ‘triple treat’ of a dance can be yours. Every once in a while, the night sky provides a spectacular feast for our […]
General Relativity had to be right. Here’s how we knew. What happens to light when it passes near a large mass? Does it simply continue in a straight line, undeflected from […]
A new paper suggests that the mysterious X17 subatomic particle is indicative of a fifth force of nature.
Winston Churchill had a secret army, and bunkers like this would have hidden them during a German invasion.
The age of the Universe is only 13.8 billion years, but we know that protons survive much longer. Here’s how. Since the discovery of radioactivity in the 19th century, humanity has […]
If this discovery came in a pre-LIGO era, maybe it would have been a surprise. But in 2019, there’s no mystery at all. Did you hear that astronomers had recently […]
The dream of multi-messenger astronomy is to seen an event with gravitational waves, neutrinos, and light all together. The newest candidate just might get us there. When it comes to cataclysmic […]
You’d have to throw out a lot of known physics for this to even be a possibility. Here’s why. It’s an undeniable scientific fact that dark matter must exist in order […]
While Mars is known as a frozen, red planet today, it has all the evidence we could ask for of a watery past, lasting for approximately the first 1.5 billion […]
MIT Professor Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” explores the perils and promise of social media in a time of discord.
Japanese physicists devise technology to discover axion dark matter.
For many, 2020 will not be remembered as a “best of” much. We don’t need to repeat the reasons here; it’s sufficient to point out that a 100-year pandemic was […]