Space & Astrophysics
The anthropic principle has fascinating scientific uses, where the simple fact of our existence holds deep physical lessons. Don’t abuse it!
Yes, “the laws of physics break down” at singularities. But relativity itself would have to be wrong for black holes to not possess them.
Many people, now with LLM assistance, regularly claim to discover game-changing revolutions. Scientists don’t buy it. You shouldn’t either.
In physics, we reduce things to their elementary, fundamental components, and build emergent things out of them. That’s not the full story.
Contrary to common experience, not everything needs a medium to travel through. Overcoming that assumption removes the need for an aether.
In 2006, Pluto was controversially demoted to “dwarf planet” by the IAU. Unless you ignore most of astrophysics, it won’t ever be one again.
Known as the “past hypothesis” problem, the Universe’s initially low entropy has long puzzled scientists. Now, cosmic inflation solves it.
Even though no human has stepped foot on the Moon’s surface in 50 years, the evidence of our presence there remains unambiguous.
The image you’re seeing isn’t a hole in the Universe, and the cosmic voids that do exist aren’t hole-like at all.
Looking up at the night sky gives us a glimpse of the Universe beyond our terrestrial concerns. Here’s the science of what’s out there.
No matter what physical system we consider, nature always obeys the same fundamental laws. Must it be this way, and if so, why?
When what we predict and what we measure don’t add up, that’s a sign there’s something new to learn. Could it be a new fundamental force?
In theory, the fabric of space could have been curved in any way imaginable. So why is the Universe flat when we measure it?
Binary black holes eventually inspiral and merge. That’s why the OJ 287 system is destined for the most energetic event in history.
Nothing lives forever, at least, not in the known Universe. But relativity allows us to get closer than ever: from a physics perspective.
Forget about the terawatt lasers we’re making on Earth. The Universe makes natural ones thousands of times more powerful than the Sun.
Long after the last star burns out, the Universe will experience its end state: a heat death. Will everything prior then be meaningless?
Before we formed stars, atoms, elements, or even got rid of our antimatter, the Big Bang made neutrinos. And we finally found them.
One big goal of science is to find an inhabited, Earth-like planet. But if we find an Earth-like world, will we even recognize it?
Many reactions emit energy, often in large amounts, but cosmic efficiency is another metric altogether. Here’s how to maximize your output.
The Universe is expanding, the expansion is accelerating, and some galaxies even recede faster-than-light. Can we see a change in real time?
Even the most brilliant mind in history couldn’t have achieved all he did without significant help from the minds of others.
Before Sun-like stars die, they transition from AGB red giants into preplanetary nebulae. Here’s how Hubble sees the famous Egg Nebula.
Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit taught us how to separate good science from the work of charlatans. In 2026, that matters more than ever.
No claim has even made it halfway up the Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale, but 21st century science is just beginning to unfold.
Here in our modern Universe, it’s cosmic dust that forms planets, complex molecules, and enables life. But how did the Universe create it?
13.8 billion years have passed since the Big Bang, but many stars will survive for longer than that. What’s the longest-lived a star can be?
Even at its faintest, Venus always outshines every other star and planet that’s visible from Earth, and then some!
Many collaborations have used JWST to take deep-field images: some wider and some deeper than others. Here’s how it can surpass them all.
A century ago, quantum physics overthrew our view of a deterministic Universe. A profound 21st century theorem closes the door even further.