It could evolve, strengthen, decay, or not be alone. Our known Universe contains matter, radiation, and dark energy. While matter (both normal and dark) and radiation become less dense as […]

The scientists, not the fossil fuel industry, were right all along. Back in 1990, the world’s top climate scientists convened to put together a report on the state of Earth’s climate. […]

The ‘final parsec problem’ is still a mystery for astronomers. When it comes to black holes in the Universe, we know there are at least two major types. There are […]

It peaks the nights of August 11–13, but it’s no longer the year’s most reliable meteor shower. Every year, beginning in mid-July, planet Earth commences passing through an enormous debris […]

If we succeed in contacting them, will that seal humanity’s doom? One of the most wondrous questions of all concerns our place in the Universe. After 13.8 billion years of […]

And, if we have one, how close are we to it? No matter which direction we look in, or how far away our telescopes and instruments are capable of seeing, the […]

We just observed the first ‘lunar formation’ in an exoplanetary system. This one image, above, is the first to show moons actively forming around a planet. This colourful image shows […]

Most of us will never run a 4 minute mile. But on a bicycle, almost anyone can do it. As human beings, we often take for granted how our bodies work. […]

Hubble’s still going strong after 31+ years. James Webb will never make it that long. Every decision that’s made — in both astronomy and in life — comes with its own set of pros and […]

50% of stars are in Sun-like ‘singlet’ systems. The planetary nebulae we see just don’t line up. Around 7 billion years from now, our Sun’s life will end. As the Sun […]

And why, even at its faintest, it always outshines every other star and planet. If you’ve been looking to the west after sunset recently, you may have noticed that there’s one […]

If our nearest star has an Earth-like planet, here’s how we’ll see it. As seen from up close, the signs of not only life, but our intelligent, technologically advanced human civilization […]

Over the coming decades, over 100,000 new satellites are expected. For countless millennia, whenever we were faced with a clear, cloudless, moonless night, all of humanity was able to witness […]

The dream of zero resistance is closer than you may think. One of the biggest physical problems in modern society is resistance. Not political or social resistance, mind you, but electrical […]

The rarest stars in the Universe are the ones we need the most to make humanity possible. Like everything in the Universe, stars are born, they live a little while, […]

When you view your right hand in a mirror, it appears as a left hand. Writing is reversed, as is the direction of any spinning object: clockwise becomes counterclockwise and […]

An almost 40-year-old theory finally has ‘smoking gun’ evidence for it. During most of their lives, stars burn stably, changing imperceptibly. The rotten egg nebula, at lower right (and shown in […]

Despite all the challenges, Hubble has vindicated this discovery. Practically everywhere we look in the Universe, the large-scale objects that we see — small galaxies, large galaxies, groups and clusters of galaxies, […]

And either way, is energy or information conserved? When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, […]

Is the Universe the same everywhere? Or are there truly ‘special places’ around? For practically all of human history, one assumption about our place in the Universe had long gone unchallenged: […]