If December’s best natural sky show seems to get better every year, it isn’t your imagination. It’s science, and it’s spectacular! Every year, the Earth travels some 940 million kilometers […]

Would you work at a job that didn’t treat you like a professional? No wonder public education drove their best teachers away. The ultimate dream of public education is incredibly simple. […]

There’s so much that we’ve discovered, looking as deeply as possible into the void. But what are we missing? Start with the laws of physics, a Universe full of a specific […]

Just because it isn’t Thanksgiving anymore doesn’t mean we don’t have an entire Universe to be thankful for. Every day, we have a choice whether we take our lives, our existence, […]

If you can’t explain the astrophysical signal that you see and cry ‘dark matter,’ chances are you’re not thinking hard enough. Despite our knowledge of the laws of physics, and the […]

As wonderful as the evidence that supports or invalidates a theory is, it can never truly kill the ones that don’t work out. When it comes to science, we like to […]

No matter what the science says, there’s no excuse for cruel behavior to a colleague. Look out into the distant Universe as far as you possibly can, and you’ll come […]

If the gravity isn’t where the matter is, things get into trouble very, very quickly. The above image, a composite of optical data, X-ray data, and a reconstructed mass map, is […]

Grad students will be taxed at the highest rate in the country, even higher than billionaires. For millions of young people, the American dream is to study the thing you’re […]

Right and wrong has never been so gray in the Star Trek Universe. Imagine you’re in a fight with an enemy, and the fight itself isn’t fair. You might have […]

There are plenty of questions we don’t know the answer to. With quantum gravity, they might be solved! This article is written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized […]

If you think we know it all, you’ll never be ready for the next big breakthrough. When you’re taught the scientific method, you think of a neat procedure you can […]

Don’t believe in dark matter or dark energy? Your view of the Universe just got a lot more difficult. If you ask an astrophysicist what’s the greatest puzzle in the […]

There’s no science in this episode of science fiction… but there’s a lot of suspicious happenings that no one’s noticing. Following up on the best episode of the season, thus […]

Do we need quantum gravity? We sure do… and here’s how we’re trying to get there! Our current best theories describing the Universe, general relativity for gravity, quantum field theory for […]

Very sure. Here’s how we know. You’ve no doubt heard that the Universe itself has been around for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, and that scientists are extremely confident […]

All sorts of futuristic technologies have come true. So why are astronauts all still weightless? Put a human being up in space, away from the gravitational bonds of the surface […]

And if we don’t prepare to catch it now, it’ll be too late. Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been redefining how we view our Universe. From hundreds of miles […]

For the first time, we’ve seen neutron stars merge. At last, the gravitational and electromagnetic sky are one. “It’s becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory […]

Either possibility offers a tremendous existence, but philosophically, there’s so much more to think about. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, […]

From the most beautiful to the most impactful, some of these are so powerful it’s breathtaking. “Truth in science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact […]

If your favorite theory made the list, you might want to consider a new favorite to bet on. “Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great […]

One of cosmic inflation’s cofounders came out against it, calling it not even science. But it is… and so much more. “There’s no obvious reason to assume that the very same […]

It’s a fascinating idea, but how does it fare as a scientific theory? “Something is happening here and this is going to have an impact.” –Robert Dijkgraaf, on Verlinde’s work The […]

Why the 2017 Nobel Prize isn’t the end, but the start, of something really, really big. “Wormholes are a gravitational phenomena. Or imaginary gravitational phenomena, as the case may be.” –Jonathan […]

A well-deserved award for the discovery over a century in the making. “Well, I walked into Building 20 and looked in at the various little labs. There was a bunch of […]

Why not just put your detectors in place of a giant mirror? “Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.” –Yousuf […]

Three eyes are so much better than two. Here’s why. “Einstein’s gravitational theory, which is said to be the greatest single achievement of theoretical physics, resulted in beautiful relations connecting gravitational […]

If you think we’ve seen all there is to see in the Universe, you’re about to have your imagination unlocked. “Hubble often takes images of distant gravitationally lensed galaxies to […]

The ELT, at 39 meters in diameter, will dwarf everything that’s ever come before. “There are so many people who are arguing or fighting over issues which don’t have much relevance. […]