If you’re wondering whether the blast wave or the radiation would kill us first, you’re asking the wrong question. As far as raw explosive power goes, no other cataclysm in […]
In reality, it has no color at all. Here’s why. Every time you see an illustration of the COVID-19 coronavirus, it’s shown with a red color to it. Sometimes it’s red […]
How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that expansion rate change over time? What is the Universe made of? How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that […]
When the supernova occurs, a whole slew of signals will arrive at once. But there’s one hint that could successfully warn us in advance. As Betelgeuse continues to vary in brightness […]
Extraterrestrial life should arise fairly easily. But intelligence is another matter entirely. Planet Earth has been around for the past 4.5 billion years or so: about the last third of […]
There’s a million things we haven’t done. But just you wait. The Universe as we know it began some 13.8 billion years ago with the onset of the hot Big Bang. […]
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 […]
There are many things on large scales that also appear on small scales. But is the Universe truly a fractal? If you take a look at the structures that form in […]
The expansion rate is dropping, but distant galaxies are accelerating. Here’s how. If you take a look at any galaxy in the Universe that isn’t gravitationally bound to our own, we’ve […]
Even if you remove everything you can from the Universe, some energy will still remain. Here’s what that means. Imagine, if you can, what it would mean to have a Universe […]
Doomsday prophesies have never once come to pass, but they’ve never had science on their side like this before. Every year, the Earth completes an orbital revolution around the Sun, returning […]
On the morning of March 31, 2020, these three worlds will be at their mutual closest in 20 years. For the past few weeks, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter have all shone […]
The origin story for our Universe got a major revision nearly 40 years ago. Time to catch up. 13.8 billion years ago, all the matter and energy contained within our Universe […]
After Kepler but before James Webb, TESS is preparing astronomers for the coming exoplanet revolution. There are always new discoveries and achievements occurring in science, and certain fields have experienced […]
All supernovae are not created equal. After a 14 year investigation, the brightest ones have a surprising explanation. In 2006, astronomers witnessed a supernova that defied conventional explanation. Typically, supernovae […]
It’s not impossible according to physics, but we truly don’t know how this object came to exist. Out in the extremities of the distant Universe, the earliest quasars can be found. […]