Has a black hole made of sound confirmed Hawking radiation?

One of Stephen Hawking's predictions seems to have been borne out in a man-made "black hole."

Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
  • Stephen Hawking predicted virtual particles splitting in two from the gravitational pull of black holes.
  • Black holes, he also said, would eventually evaporate due to the absorption of negatively charged virtual particles.
  • A scientist has built a black hole analogue based on sound instead of light.
Keep reading Show less
sound space physics cosmos prediction astronomy stephen hawking hawking radiation

No Planet B can 'ever' be made as comfortable as Earth, says British astronomer Martin Rees

The end of the world is the main focus of his new book.

Image source: KARIM SAHIB / AFP / Getty Images
  • Everybody from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking has said we should colonize a 'Planet B' due to the threat to our existence. Martin Brees, the UK's Astronomer Royal, has another perspective on it.
  • "I think we have to accept that there's no planet B, which can ever be made as comfortable as the Earth," he recently told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.
  • In a time of ever-worsening climate change that threatens the very existence of human beings, his focus is on maintaining and fixing the planet we now live on, but still with an eye toward the stars.
Keep reading Show less
mars elon musk stephen hawking astronomy climate change

10 great minds we lost in 2018

Renowned scientists and technologists who've passed away in 2018.

Getty Images
  • We lost a great deal of internet pioneers and geniuses of physics in 2018.
  • Creations of fiber optic cables, men on the moon and the unsung heroes of the life sciences made their mark on the scientific enterprise.
  • The loss of men like Stephen Hawking leaves a hole in the sciences, but his work and many others will continue to inspire the generations to come.
Keep reading Show less
stephen hawking computers business invention technology science

A $100-million startup shares incredible plan to propel spacecraft with giant lasers

Breakthrough Starshot is moving ahead with an audacious vision for space exploration.

  • The Breakthrough Starshot initiative was co-founded by Stephen Hawking.
  • The project raised $100 million and is moving ahead with extensive research.
  • The goal of Starshot is to send tiny "StarChip" spacecraft to explore neighboring star systems.
Keep reading Show less
nasa astronomy planets universe science fiction stephen hawking spacecraft computers space

Ask a NASA astronomer! How did Stephen Hawking change the world?

Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientific and analytical minds of our time, says NASA's Michelle Thaller.

Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientific and analytical minds of our time, says NASA's Michelle Thaller. She posits that Hawking might be one of the parents of an entirely new school of physics because he was working on some incredible stuff—concerning quantum entaglement— right before he died. He was even humble enough to go back to his old work about black holes and rethink his hypotheses based on new information. Not many great minds would do that, she says, relaying just one of the reasons Stephen Hawking will be so deeply missed. You can follow Michelle Thaller on Twitter at @mlthaller.

stephen hawking stephen hawking legacy stephen hawking NASA michelle thaller NASA black holes quantum entanglement videos