It’s how successful our current theories are. Some 500 years ago, there was one scientific phenomenon that was, without controversy, extremely well-understood: the motion of the celestial objects in the sky. […]

It could have had any curvature at all. So why is it flat? What is the shape of the Universe? If you had come along before the 1800s, it likely never […]

We still don’t know what dark matter is, but at least we now know what it’s not. When it comes to science, we often say that it only takes a single […]

‘Reductio ad absurdum’ won’t help you in an absurd Universe. Throughout history, there have been two main ways humanity has attempted to gain knowledge about the world: top-down, where we […]

If everything eventually dies and decays, is there a way to prolong the inevitable? Our Universe, as it exists today, puts us in an incredibly privileged position. Had we come […]

Are space and time real like atoms are, or is spacetime just a calculational tool? When most of us think about the Universe, we think about the material objects that […]

Thou shalt not conclude “aliens” from insufficient data. When it comes to what’s out there in this Universe, perhaps the only thing that’s greater than our cosmic ignorance is the […]

Avi Loeb says it’s aliens. Every other astronomer disagrees. Here’s why. In 2017, an astronomical event occurred that was unlike any other: for the first time, we observed an object that […]

Think there are habitable super-Earths out there? Think again. Here in our Solar System, we have two very distinct types of planets: small, terrestrial, rocky worlds, with thin (or no) atmospheres […]

Time always moves in the same direction, but what if the Universe were contracting? As we step forward in time, a number of things always seem to happen together. Objects […]

There are many things on large scales that also appear on small scales. But is the Universe truly a fractal? If you take a look at the structures that form in […]

It’s 92 billion light-years wide after just 13.8 billion years. And that’s just fine. If there’s one rule that people know about how fast things can move, it’s that there’s a […]

It’s that the Universe can be understood at all. Don’t deafen yourself to its lessons. In a nutshell, 2020 has been a unique year in human history. For the first time […]

It might have been Einstein’s greatest blunder, but it’s our leading theory today. One of the most mysterious components in the entire Universe is dark energy, which — if we’re being honest with […]

We have been rejecting science for far too long. We all need to embrace it. For as long as human civilization has existed, those societies that have embraced science have had […]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own […]

How many potentially habitable planets are there? We sincerely don’t know. One of the most compelling scientific goals humanity has set for itself is to find extraterrestrial life: biological activity originating […]

Halley’s comet only visits every ~76 years, but its meteors arrive twice each year. The most famous comet of all — Halley’s comet — returns to our inner Solar System every ~76 years. Halley’s comet […]

The anthropic principle has some fascinating scientific uses. And abuses, too. For thousands of years, humans have pondered the meaning of our existence. From philosophers who debated whether their minds could […]

Forgetting them, at any step, can lead to unscientific conclusions. No one, not even the smartest among us, were competent scientists from the outset. The concept of science is simple […]