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Universe Expansion
From outside a black hole, all masses take an infinite amount of time to cross the event horizon. How, then, can black holes grow? Every Milky Way-sized galaxy should contain hundreds […]
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 […]
A decade ago, we didn’t know if dwarf galaxies had black holes. Today, half of the ones we see aren’t where we expected. Normally, galaxies have supermassive black holes millions […]
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 […]
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 […]
It’s a supergiant star in the final stage of its life, and it just dimmed by an enormous amount. What’s going on? When you take a look at the stars in […]
A black hole’s event horizon is thought of as the point of no return. But perhaps there are ways back out, after all. Black holes just might be the most extreme […]
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 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 […]
The most famous ‘supernova impostor’ of all could have died back in the 1840s. Here’s what we think kept it alive. In all of astronomy, no stellar event releases more energy […]
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 […]
If this discovery came in a pre-LIGO era, maybe it would have been a surprise. But in 2019, there’s no mystery at all. Did you hear that astronomers had recently […]
In science, breakthroughs don’t always begin with a ‘eureka’ moment. Sometimes, the true story is absolutely unbelievable. When it comes to our Universe’s origin story, many competing ideas once thrived. […]
Without this one ingredient, there wouldn’t be enough ‘glue’ to hold the Universe together. Of all the things in the Universe to be thankful for — the stars, planets, atoms, molecules, and […]
The shape of our Universe has long been recognized to be flat. But that isn’t the only possibility. The Universe is expanding, and goes on for farther than even our […]
The Leonid meteor shower peaks today. Its parent comet taught us where meteor showers come from. Every year, as Earth regularly orbits the Sun, meteor showers repeatedly recur. While August’s Perseids […]
Even before MMA was a combat sport, it was a unique type of astronomy. Today, it’s opening up the Universe as never before. On February 24, 1987, a spectacular signal was […]
For decades, one of the Big Bang’s greatest predictions was shrouded in doubt. The answer was always there on Channel 3. When it comes to the question of how our Universe […]
And if the data is good enough, we can determine that it’s accelerating directly, too, silencing the last remaining doubters. If you want to understand what the Universe is made […]
It might seem puzzling, in a Universe bound by the speed of light, that this could be true. Here’s the science behind it. If you look out into the distant Universe, […]
Scientists actively researching this have known the answer for quite some time. It’s time for everyone to catch up. The Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, and is generally regarded […]
There are a lot of unsolved mysteries in the Universe, but dark energy is the most confusing. Here’s why. The majority of the energy in our Universe went completely undiscovered until […]
Young galaxies are bright and blue; old galaxies are red and dead. So how did this old, red galaxy form so early? The observable Universe contains two trillion distinct galaxies, but […]
Forget about alien nonsense. The Universe as it actually is doesn’t need any embellishments to be interesting. In our Solar System, the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and other masses are […]
If you think about the way a gravitational wave detector works, you might encounter a paradox. Here’s the solution. One of the greatest scientific achievements in all of human history […]