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Cosmology
The fundamental building blocks of reality are indivisible: quanta that cannot be split or divided. Our understanding remains incomplete.
Long after the last star burns out, the Universe will experience its end state: a heat death. Will everything prior then be meaningless?
Before we formed stars, atoms, elements, or even got rid of our antimatter, the Big Bang made neutrinos. And we finally found them.
The Universe is expanding, the expansion is accelerating, and some galaxies even recede faster-than-light. Can we see a change in real time?
Before Sun-like stars die, they transition from AGB red giants into preplanetary nebulae. Here's how Hubble sees the famous Egg Nebula.
Many collaborations have used JWST to take deep-field images: some wider and some deeper than others. Here's how it can surpass them all.
The Universe formed stars, galaxies, and even galaxy clusters extremely early on in our cosmos. This new marvel is one more JWST surprise.
At the upper limits of what's energetically possible, cosmic rays still persist. What happens if a human gets hit by the most energetic one?
Our great hope is that today's indirect, astrophysical evidence will someday lead to successful direct detection. What if that's impossible?
Just like animals, galaxies often have bizarre, unusual, or even unique properties. But finding many, all at once, really does raise alarms.
Even in an expanding Universe, we expect both redshifted and blueshifted galaxies. But nearly every one we see is redshifted. Here's why.
Many view the development of fringe, alternative theories as a useless waste of time. But when they can be tested, it shows what reality is.
Gravitational lenses arise when foreground masses and background light sources properly align. Einstein rings are rare, but crosses abound.
It's not about particle-antiparticle pairs falling into or escaping from a black hole. A deeper explanation alters our view of reality.
The VENUS survey isn't about planets at all, but about finding multiply-lensed supernovae. The ambition? To save the expanding Universe.
Back in 1604, Johannes Kepler discovered the Milky Way's last naked-eye supernova. Here's how NASA's Chandra sees it over the 21st century.
The seeds of cosmic structure that were planted back during the Big Bang grew into the cosmic web we see today. What is it telling us?
When objects are gravitationally bound, they cannot escape from one another's influence. How does that work within the expanding Universe?
Travel half the distance to your destination, and there's always another half to go. So how do you eventually arrive? That's Zeno's Paradox.
Even the youngest galaxies are often dust-rich, even with very low levels of heavy elements. Nearby dwarf galaxy Sextans A explains why.
Astronomers have found starless gas clouds before, but Cloud 9 might be the most pristine one of all, with big lessons for cosmic history.
Particles are everywhere, including particles from space that stream through the human body. Here's how they prove Einstein's relativity.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the Universe is simply that it, and everything in it, exists. But what's the reason why?
The highest-energy particles could be a sign of new, unexpected physics. But the simplest, most mundane explanation is particularly iron-ic.
While humanity has been skywatching since ancient times, much of our cosmic understanding has come about only recently. Very recently.
Our Universe doesn't just expand and cool, but the expansion itself is accelerating. Can stars form under such structure-erasing conditions?
Earth orbits the Sun while spinning on its tilted axis, with two annual occasions marking that maximal tilt. That's where solstices arise.
Big Think and the John Templeton Foundation gathered scientists, artists, and storytellers in Los Angeles to explore the power of awe.
Our Standard Model of the Universe, for both particle physics and cosmology, remains intact for now. When will its foundations crack?
Science isn't absolute. Its truths and discoveries enable us to approximate reality, but we must always remain open-minded to revisions.