As more data comes in, the puzzle gets deeper and deeper. Whenever you set out to solve a problem, there are a series of steps you have to take in order […]

What’s more massive than the heaviest known neutron star but lighter than the lightest known black hole? LIGO may be about to solve that mystery. Whenever a star is born in […]

You might think that we live in a three dimensional Universe based on space alone. But you cannot leave time out of it. If you were asked to describe how you […]

The darkness of the night sky was a mystery for generations of humans. Here’s the reason why. From our perspective here in the Solar System, it makes absolute intuitive sense why […]

Black holes are regions of extreme gravity, but dark matter barely interacts at all. Do they play well together? Black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the […]

When the Universe expands, photons redshift to longer wavelengths and lower energies. So where does that energy go? Imagine the ultimate version of a toy Universe: it’s expanding, it’s full of […]

And one of our planets has the orbiting moons to prove it. Despite the dangers posed to planet Earth by a comet or asteroid strike, our Solar System is actually an […]

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 […]

There are rules absolutely forbidding it from happening. But some particles do it anyway. All the matter we know of in the Universe is made up of Standard Model particles. Photons […]

When you’re trying to peel back the veil obscuring the fundamental nature of matter, you have to look absolutely everywhere. Sometimes, the solution to a puzzle you’ve been stymied by […]

It’s not a question of could they, but have they? Here’s how we’ll find out. It’s no secret that fragments of asteroids, comets, and other spaceborne objects have been found here […]

Particle physics is everywhere, even in the palm of your hand. When you hold out your palm and point it towards the sky, what is it that’s interacting with your hand? […]

Our Universe cannot be described by normal matter alone. Vera Rubin’s work led the way. Ask an astrophysicist what our Universe is made of, and you’ll likely receive a shocking surprise. […]

And does it require the idea of ‘negative gravity’ in order to work? The biggest question that we’re even capable of asking, with our present knowledge and understanding of the Universe, […]

Just because you can design an experiment to test for something doesn’t mean you should trust the results. Is there another Universe out there? The Universe we know and inhabit, the […]

Not only can’t astronomers and planetary scientists agree, but the IAU made it worse for everyone. If you were alive in 2006, you likely remember a momentous event in astronomy: […]

When stars get ejected from galaxies within massive clusters, they go where the dark matter is. Dark matter is one of the greatest mysteries in the Universe, displaying its effects in […]

General Relativity has nothing to do with light or electromagnetism at all. So how to gravitational waves know to travel at the speed of light? There are two fundamental classes of […]

The quest for a quantum theory of gravity is the holy grail of physics. Here’s why it’s murkier than anyone expected. If you want to fully describe how the Universe […]

If you think nothing can move faster than light, check out this clever way to defeat that limit. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light. When Einstein set forth […]

The Planck length is a lot smaller than anything we’ve ever accessed. But is it a true limit? If you wanted to understand how our Universe operates, you’d have to examine […]

Discovered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, it’s powered by a supermassive black hole. 2019 marks 20 years of NASA’s Chandra, humanity’s most powerful X-ray observatory. Artist illustration of the Chandra X-ray […]

Some galaxies might not have any dark matter. Here’s why you should care. There are two assumptions that everyone makes about the Universe for extremely good reasons, but they might not […]

A vacuum cleaner is the wrong picture. Time to bust that myth. There are no classes of object in our Universe more extreme than black holes. With so much mass present […]

Two independent techniques give precise but incompatible answers. Here’s how to resolve it. If you didn’t know anything about the Universe beyond our own galaxy, there are two different pathways you […]

An entire Universe of possibilities await stars like our own, even after they run out of fuel. One of the most profound rules in all the Universe is that nothing lasts […]

Has the mystery really been solved? Doubtful. The real science goes much deeper. For perhaps the last year or so, a small galaxy located not too far away has captivated the […]

When we think about the birth of the Universe, was time already in place? When we look at the Universe today, we know with an extraordinary amount of scientific certainty that […]

There aren’t any holes in the Universe at all. What actually exists is far more interesting. Somewhere, far away, if you believe what you read, there’s a hole in the […]

If we could see in three dimensions instead of two, we’d never have thought otherwise. Perhaps the most famous sight of a dying star is the Ring Nebula, discovered in […]