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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
The center of our Sun tops out at 15 million K, but nuclear bombs can get nearly 20 times hotter. Here’s how. In terms of raw energy output, nothing on our […]
Ending social distancing won’t only make us sicker, but will tank the health care industry in the process. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the world. As of today, […]
We’ve never found eight stars bound together in the same stable system. But nature might make it so. The Universe that we have is often more wondrous and bizarre than even […]
Today, our observable Universe extends for 46 billion light-years in all directions. But early on, things were much smaller. There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly […]
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, […]
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 […]
No one has seen an equinox this early since the 19th century. And you’d better get used to it. This year, on March 19, 2020, the equinox will occur. For a […]
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, […]
Few scientific ideas have been as polarizing as string theory. There are good reasons to both love it and hate it. String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in […]
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 […]
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 […]
It’s been called the biggest conundrum in all of cosmology, and recent measurements just add to the confusion. One of the most puzzling facts about the Universe is that different […]
Two of our biggest science-fiction dreams might not remain fiction for much longer. Here’s how 21st-century science could make it real. For as long as human beings have looked up at […]
If galaxies are cities in the Universe, how unfortunate that our ‘cosmic country’ is dissolving. On the largest cosmic scales of all, planet Earth appears to be anything but special. […]
The center of the galaxy is mostly obscure in visible light. But thanks to the world’s most powerful infrared telescope, we can see inside. Throughout history, the sight of the Milky […]
From outside a black hole, all masses take an infinite amount of time to cross the event horizon. How, then, can black holes grow? Every Milky Way-sized galaxy should contain hundreds […]
The images themselves will take your breath away, but the science we can extract from them is truly revolutionary and spectacular. Dark matter may be one of the most mysterious […]
A decade ago, we didn’t know if dwarf galaxies had black holes. Today, half of the ones we see aren’t where we expected. Normally, galaxies have supermassive black holes millions […]
It’s a pipe dream that violates the laws of physics, and not even quantum mechanics can give us a way out. One of the most fundamental rules of physics, undisputed since […]