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Universe Expansion
For many, it was just a successful launch like any other. But for scientists around the globe, it was a victory few dared to imagine.
Even with leap years and long-term planning, our calendar won't be good forever. Here's why, and how to fix it.
A wild, compelling idea without a direct, practical test, the Multiverse is highly controversial. But its supporting pillars sure are stable.
We know it couldn't have began from a singularity. So how small could it have been at the absolute minimum?
Whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Universe, we can be assured of one thing: We are the only human beings in the cosmos.
The photometric filters for the Vera Rubin Observatory are complete and showcase why they are indispensable for astronomy.
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where's everyone else?
Astrophysicists once believed in a static Universe, containing only the Milky Way galaxy. Science definitively proved otherwise.
After more than two decades of precision measurements, we've now reached the "gold standard" for how the pieces don't fit.
A few years ago, the first dark matter-free galaxies were announced, and then immediately disputed. Now, there are too many to ignore.
Every December, the Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak. Its 2021 show will be spectacular, but only if you do it right.
Our Solar System's outer reaches, and what's in them, was predicted long before the first Oort Cloud object was ever discovered.
Previously, only the brightest and most active galaxies could pierce the obscuring wall of cosmic dust. At last, normal galaxies break through.
The stars, planets, and many moons are extremely round. Why don't they take other shapes?
The majority of the matter in our Universe isn't made of any of the particles in the Standard Model. Could the axion save the day?
We haven't seen a partial eclipse lasting this long since 1440, and won't again until 2669. North America is perfectly positioned for 2021's.
Although most of the Universe's mass is dark matter, which gravitates just as well as normal matter, it still can't make black holes.
The latest gravitational wave data from LIGO and Virgo finally shows us the truth: there are no "gaps" in the masses of black holes.
There are over 100 known elements in the periodic table. These 8 ways of making them account for every one.
There's a big difference between the notions of 'false vacuum' and 'true vacuum' states. Here's why we don't want to live in the former.
The highest-energy particles of all come from space, not human-made colliders. When it comes to the most energetic particle collisions of all, you might think that the Large Hadron Collider […]
Whatever’s lurking out there, it isn’t all, or even mostly, normal matter. When it comes to the Universe, it’s only natural to wonder what, exactly, it is that makes everything up. […]
“Hubble’s Law” is only an approximation, and breaks down when we need it most. From anywhere in the Universe, you can choose to look out at any other galaxy that’s present. […]
It happened more than once, and needed to. Here’s why. If there’s one thing you can be certain about when it comes to outer space, it’s that it’s transparent, not opaque, […]
If it wasn’t a singularity, how small could it have been? Today, when you look out in any direction as far as the laws of physics allow us to see, the […]
Both made monumental contributions that were far ahead of their time. It’s hard to believe, but the idea that the Universe was dominated not by normal matter but rather by dark […]
Hubble, our greatest space-based observatory today, is just the beginning. The Hubble Space Telescope has been astronomy’s most revolutionary observatory in history. The stars and galaxies we see today didn’t […]
Galaxies can have regions both hotter and colder than the background radiation of the Universe. When we talk about the depths of space, we get this picture in our heads […]
We’ve already observed three cases where it’s happened. When you look at an object in space, it’s pretty easy to tell if it’s a star or a planet. Stars are […]
When you mix science with speculation, you get speculation. But the underlying science is still real. Whenever you hear the phrase, “it’s just a theory,” it should trigger alarm bells in […]