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Science & Tech
Explore the discoveries that reveal how the world works, alongside the technologies that extend, reshape, and sometimes challenge what’s possible.
And if you have a friend at the same longitude, you can even measure its circumference. This year’s equinox, on March 19/20 of 2020 (longitude-dependent), is Earth’s earliest in 124 […]
You’d have to throw out a lot of known physics for this to even be a possibility. Here’s why. It’s an undeniable scientific fact that dark matter must exist in order […]
Dark matter is perhaps the most mysterious substance in the Universe. What exactly it is, however, still eludes us. Dark matter is one of the most mysterious and yet most ubiquitous […]
It’s an incredibly useful approximation. But the truth takes us far deeper. Anyone who’s ever taken a physics course has learned the same myth for centuries now: that any object thrown, […]
Now is not the time to panic. But it’s the perfect time to get informed. The typical human body is made out of some 10²⁸ atoms distributed across approximately 100 […]
The full Moon is always a sight worth looking at. This March, the full Worm Moon is a little more “super” than usual. The full Moon is always a spectacular sight: […]
Unbelievably enough, it all comes back to Pythagoras. One of the first theorems anyone learns in mathematics is the Pythagorean Theorem: if you have a right triangle, then the square […]
After the Big Bang, merging supermassive black holes are unparalleled. Here’s how we’ll find the first one. Last week, NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory made history by announcing the most energetic explosive […]
A black hole punched a hole 15 Milky Ways across in a galaxy cluster’s gas, by far the largest ‘kaboom’ ever seen. The Universe, everywhere we look, is full of cataclysmic […]
It’s not a lack of motivation, intelligence, or capability. Here’s how to open a space. Over the past 20 years, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in physics has more than […]
It isn’t just a day that comes every four years; it’s everything we need to keep our calendar aligned with Earth’s orbit. Once every four years, at least under most circumstances, […]
Ever wonder, exactly, how stars form from molecular gas and dust? So do scientists. One of the great challenges for astronomy is to determine, in gory detail, how stars are […]
It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]
Sure, cosmic inflation has its detractors. But it also has something no alternative possesses: predictions and tests. Perhaps the most compelling part of any remarkable story is its origin: how it […]
A fascinating new book tells the untold stories of two women, Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb, who could have been first. On June 18, 1983, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched with […]
One of NASA’s original great observatories, Spitzer showed us the infrared Universe as never before. On January 30, 2020, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was retired after a 17 year mission. Prior […]
Scientific surprises are often how science advances. But more often than not, they’re just bad science. When you’re a scientist, getting an unexpected result can be a double-edged sword. The best […]
And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]
Only one dark matter detection experiment ever gave a positive result, in conflict with all the others. This could be why. For multiple generations now, it’s been apparent to astronomers that […]
We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]