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Astrophysics
We confidently state that the Universe is known to be 13.8 billion years old, with an uncertainty of just 1%. Here's how we know.
Every time our Universe cools below a critical threshold, we fall out of equilibrium. That's the best thing that ever happened to us.
The strongest tests of curved space are only possible around the lowest-mass black holes of all. Their small event horizons are the key.
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, going back to the hot Big Bang. But was that truly the beginning, and is that truly its age?
It is humanity's biggest step yet into the Solar System.
There's the textbook answer, then there's the real answer.
SpinLaunch will cleverly attempt to reach space with minimal rocket fuel. But will physics prevent a full-scale version from succeeding?
We cannot afford to dream about living on other worlds while we continue to destroy ours.
From astrobiology to geology, a Moon base could serve as a laboratory unlike anything on Earth.
At 1,600 light years away, the black hole is practically in our cosmic backyard.
It's rare that one single image packs so much beauty and science simultaneously. This Hubble view of a nearby star-forming region has both.
Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies gobble up whatever matter ventures too close, becoming active. Here's how they work.
We're used to scientists telling us about the math and physics behind astronomical events. But what does studying space make us feel?
You are trapped in time. You never live in the world as it is but only as you experience it as it was.
Astronomers have been looking for radio waves sent by a distant civilization for more than 60 years.
All across the Universe, planets come in a wide variety of sizes, masses, compositions, and temperatures. And most have rain and snow.
The ESA's Gaia mission just broke the record for closest black hole by over 1,000 light-years. Is there an even closer one out there?
IceCube just found an active galaxy in the nearby Universe, 47 million light-years away, through its neutrino emissions: a cosmic first.
Thanks to a couple of rovers, we know Mars was once blue.
We know the Universe is expanding, but scientists don't agree on the rate. This is a legitimate problem.
In 1974, Stephen Hawking showed that even black holes don't live forever, but emit radiation and eventually evaporate. Here's how.
In 1995, Hubble peered at the Pillars of Creation, forever changing our view. Now in 2022, JWST completes the star-forming puzzle.
Our understanding always will remain incomplete.
The stars circle each other every 51 minutes, confirming a decades-old prediction.
Most exoplanets have been found around single stars via the transit method. But binary star systems might contain even more of them.
Early relics and late-time objects give incompatible results for the expanding Universe. This independent anomaly intensifies the problem.
The DART mission tested whether it's possible to deflect an asteroid by crashing something into it.
"Even with my training, I still got insights from the book’s descriptions. That’s how good Carroll is at explaining physics."
Are you unhappy with how various events in your life turned out? Perhaps, in a parallel Universe, things worked out very differently.