Few scientific ideas have been as polarizing as string theory. There are good reasons to both love it and hate it. String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in […]

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 […]

One of NASA’s original great observatories, Spitzer showed us the infrared Universe as never before. On January 30, 2020, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was retired after a 17 year mission. Prior […]

Only one dark matter detection experiment ever gave a positive result, in conflict with all the others. This could be why. For multiple generations now, it’s been apparent to astronomers that […]

It’s been called the biggest conundrum in all of cosmology, and recent measurements just add to the confusion. One of the most puzzling facts about the Universe is that different […]

For over 50 years, it’s been the scientifically accepted theory describing the origin of the Universe. It’s time we all learned its truths. The Universe we know today, filled with stars […]

If galaxies are cities in the Universe, how unfortunate that our ‘cosmic country’ is dissolving. On the largest cosmic scales of all, planet Earth appears to be anything but special. […]

The highest-energy particles on Earth reach enormous energies, but it’s nothing compared to what the Universe can achieve. Deep underground in Europe, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator lives in a […]

Just because an idea is fashionable doesn’t mean it’s relevant for our Universe. One of the greatest unsolved puzzles in all of science is dark energy. The Universe isn’t just […]

In General Relativity, the fabric of space doesn’t remain static over time. Everything else depends on the details we measure. If there’s one thing we’ve experimentally determined to be a constant […]

If dark matter is fundamentally different from the normal matter we know, there should be a way to test it. Here are the results. Dark matter — despite the enormous indirect evidence for […]

Unlike most articles that are titled with a question, the answer isn’t automatically “no.” Announced on January 6, 2020, NASA’s TESS mission has just discovered its first Earth-sized, habitable zone […]

The images themselves will take your breath away, but the science we can extract from them is truly revolutionary and spectacular. Dark matter may be one of the most mysterious […]

Within the next billion years, the Magellanic Clouds might merge with our galaxy. But the new stars are already here. Within the Milky Way, there are only a few instances of […]

It’s one thing to find a galaxy that “shouldn’t exist.” It’s quite another to learn why it does. Above a certain size, spiral galaxies shouldn’t exist. A single major merger — where two […]

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 […]

After 13.8 billion years, there’s still a whole lot that’s changing as time goes on. With each new year that comes upon us, there are a slew of new events awaiting […]

If you were to compress the entire history of the Universe into one calendar year, everything we love happens on December 31st. Our Universe has been around for 13.8 billion years […]

The Eagle Nebula, complete with the Pillars of Creation, tells a mini-version of the story of how all the Universe’s stars formed. The Eagle Nebula, found 7,000 light-years away, demonstrates how […]

It’s not a question we know enough to know the answer to, but to dismiss the possibility is scientifically baseless. There’s one question that most of us ask at some […]

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 […]

Astronomy’s enduring quest is to go farther, fainter, and more detailed than ever before. Here’s the edge of the cosmic frontier. Astronomers have always sought to push back the viewable […]

In the middle of a great cosmic void, a single, isolated galaxy persists amidst the darkness. It’s about to get a lot lonelier. Here in our own cosmic backyard, the […]

The NICER experiment, designed to measure neutron stars as never before, just released their first pulsar map, and it’s amazing. After typical supernovae, remnant collapsed cores of matter are left behind. […]

A fascinating mathematical structure exists that goes well beyond our common experience. Could it revolutionize physics? Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the Universe is that every particle within it — at […]

There’s real, straightforward science behind the destruction of an Alderaan-sized planet. In all of science fiction, perhaps the most iconic moment of destruction occurs in 1977’s Star Wars: A New […]

The hot Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, and there’s no other possible answer consistent with what we know today. Conceptually, it might seem like the simplest idea in existence […]

We speak with cosmologist Dan Hooper, and ponder the literal edge of what we know about the Universe. Have you ever wondered what the first moments of our Universe were […]

How can physics on the smallest scales affect what the Universe does on its largest ones? Cosmic inflation holds the answer. On a macroscopic level, the Universe appears to be entirely […]

Even extremely simple configurations in General Relativity cannot be solved exactly. Here’s the science of why. It’s difficult to appreciate how revolutionary of a transformation it is to consider the Universe […]