Astrophysics

Astrophysics

WR 124 JWST composite
This beautiful JWST image of Wolf-Rayet star WR 124 has been called a "prelude to a supernova" by NASA. That might be entirely wrong.
Albert Einstein and Isidor Kohn
How scientists found out that we live in a cosmic aquarium.
nasa merge black hole
When supermassive black holes merge, they emit more energy than anything else to occur in our Universe except the Big Bang.
crab pulsar remnant
We can't go back to the Big Bang, nor ahead to the heat death of the Universe. Nevertheless, here are today's natural temperature extremes.
hypermassive neutron star
Somewhere out there in the Universe is the heaviest neutron star, and elsewhere lies the lightest black hole. Where's the line between them?
quantum entanglement qubit ER = EPR
Two very different ideas, wormholes and quantum entanglement, might be fundamentally related. What would "ER = EPR" mean for our Universe?
time crystal entangled electron spin
Even with quantum teleportation and the existence of entangled quantum states, faster-than-light communication still remains impossible.
Not even Einstein immediately knew the power of the equations he gave us.
regions of the universe
The zero-point energy of empty space is not zero. Even with all the physics we know, we have no idea how to calculate what it ought to be.
planetary nebulae infrared spitzer
What kind of object will you form? What will its fate be? How long will a star live? Almost everything is determined by mass alone.
Great Pyramid
A non-invasive method for looking inside structures is solving mysteries about the ancient pyramid.
rcw 86 supernova remnant spitzer
If stars don't go supernova at first, they can get a second chance after becoming a white dwarf. But can their companions survive?
Giuseppe Donatiello Venus Jupiter
In our Solar System, even the two brightest planets frequently align in our skies. But only rarely is it spectacularly visible from Earth.
All human development, from large cities to small towns, shines light into the night sky.
borexino
If you're a massless particle, you must always move at light speed. If you have mass, you must go slower. So why aren't any neutrinos slow?
universe bulk volume brane dimension
Unless you confront your theory with what's actually out there in the Universe, you're playing in the sandbox, not engaging in science.
NASA spitzer infrared
JWST's revolutionary views arrive in high-resolution at infrared wavelengths. Without NASA's Spitzer first, it wouldn't have been possible.
Drake equation
The Fermi paradox (along with the subsequent Drake equation) is so difficult that even brilliant thinkers can make little dent in it.
dark energy
Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in all the Universe. Is there some way to avoid "having to live with it?"
Nothing in this Universe is eternal — not even the stars.
qcd fields color anticolor
Protons and neutrons are held together by the strong force: with 3 colors and 3 anticolors. So why are there only 8 gluons, and not 9?
Some of them have survived the wilds of space for billions of years.
Roger Penrose conformal cyclic cosmology
Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose, famed for his work on black holes, claims we've seen evidence from a prior Universe. Only, we haven't.
UNCOVER NIRCam mosaic
An incredible composite image of Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744, simultaneously showcases both our impressive knowledge and vast ignorance.
Curiosity rover on Mars
We may have discovered alien life already but rejected the evidence too quickly because it seemed false at first glance.
JWST NIRCam Tarantula Nebula
The glorious sights that JWST keeps revealing are less than a millionth of the whole Universe. Just imagine what else is out there.
EHT event horizons
Since its observation discovery in the 1990s, dark energy has been one of science's biggest mysteries. Could black holes be the cause?