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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
Sometimes science is stranger than fiction. “To morrow, I believe, is to be an eclipse of the sun, and I think it perfectly meet and proper that the sun in the […]
Last week, an asteroid fell from the sky and struck the Lake Michigan area. What if it had been a city-killer instead? “By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save […]
Is gravitational repulsion a real thing? “For the first time, astronomers have outlined and named the network of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, adding a line to our cosmic address […]
Why Saturn’s Iapetus has three great mysteries… and we’ve only solved one of them. “The dance between darkness and light will always remain — the stars and the moon will always need the […]
The outer three can even be seen with a small, 1.5 meter telescope. This 2010 picture of three of the four known exoplanets orbiting HR 8799 represents the first time […]
Why do the asteroids that fall to Earth have the composition they do? A giant space collision 466 million years ago may be to blame. “Men of genius are often dull […]
Why weightlessness is possible, even if there’s no place you can hide from the Universe’s longest-range force. “It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that […]
And when you demand ‘perfectly identical,’ just how high of a bar are you setting? “Lives are snowflakes — unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another […]
Why it’s not “the next Hubble,” but “the first James Webb.” “…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is […]
Only a few galaxies exhibit this green glow in the nearby Universe. At early times, it’s practically all of the brightest ones. “The discovery that young galaxies are so unexpectedly […]
How Vera Rubin changed the Universe. “Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.” –Vera Rubin Look out at the night sky, and what do you see? […]
The first ultra-deep, ultra-wide field view of the Universe heralded what the 2010s would bring. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal […]
And defeat for new physics. Without something spectacular, there’s no reason to build a bigger collider. “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is […]
It’s not appealing to authority that’s the problem; it’s the false authorities and what comes next if you accept their nonsense. “When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask […]
And what it found was a world swimming, literally, with possibilities. Just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are still planetary bodies. The misfit becomes the […]
Even if the Universe grows to infinity, there might not be enough space to hold all the possibilities. “We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.” –Marina […]
There’s never been a more important time to be aware of how the fate of the Earth depends on us. “We only have one planet that serves as an example and […]
Whether it’s “super” or not, you won’t want to miss this piece of the Universe. “From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab […]
We’ve just had the largest full Moon in 68 years. Here’s what was — and wasn’t — true. “For most people, we often marvel at the beauty of a sunrise or the magnificence of […]
The reports that our Solar System is missing the galaxy’s most common type of planet are greatly exaggerated. “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a […]