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Astrophysics
We don’t need to think about what life is made of but rather what it does.
Although we still don't know the question, we know that the answer to life, the Universe, and everything is 42. Here are 5 possibilities.
Considering the astronomical occupational risks, life insurance was prohibitively expensive for the first NASA astronauts.
Hermann Minkowski called Einstein a "lazybones" with a "not very solid" education. Less than 10 years later, he would eat his words.
The Universe, although violent, is filled with creation events following destructive ones. 1850 light-years away, both types are unfolding.
Between the least massive star and most massive planet lies the mysterious brown dwarf: a class of objects that are neither star nor planet.
From the Big Bang to black holes, singularities are hard to avoid. The math definitely predicts them, but are they truly, physically real?
Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are locked in an eternal battle over the nature of gravity. Whose side are you on?
Measurements of the acceleration of the universe don’t agree, stumping physicists working to understand the cosmic past and future. A new proposal seeks to better align these estimates — and is likely testable.
In the largest star-forming region close to Earth, JWST found hundreds of planetary-mass objects. How do these free-floating planets form?
With so many early galaxies of unexpectedly large brightnesses, JWST surprised us all. Here's how scientists made sense of what we see.
Every astrobiologist wants to find an alien. But the public should be skeptical when the "aliens" look like tiny humans.
The question of why the Universe is the way it is is an ancient one, and none of the answers we have come up with are satisfying.
If nature were perfectly deterministic, atoms would almost instantly all collapse. Here's how Heisenberg uncertainty saves the atom.
In the quest to measure how antimatter falls, the possibility that it fell "up" provided hope for warp drive. Here's how it all fell apart.
The laws of physics don't prefer matter over antimatter. So how can we be certain that distant stars & galaxies aren't made of antimatter?
Within the next few decades, we may well have hard evidence for the existence of alien life on worlds light-years distant from Earth.
Space weather poses a tremendous threat to all satellites, knocking all computer systems offline. Is that a recipe for Kessler syndrome?
How can you maximize the amount of love and happiness in your life? One of history's greatest scientists found the answer: with math.
Chemical changes inside Mars' core caused it to lose its magnetic field. This, in turn, caused it to lose its oceans. But how?
A more distant galaxy liked the lens so much that it went and put a ring on it. Here's the science behind this remarkable cosmic object.
This measurement is crucial to confirm that one of the assumptions of Einstein’s theory of gravity is valid.
The hot Big Bang was an energetic, brilliantly luminous event. Today's Universe is alight with stars. But in between, the dark ages ruled.
An enormous amount of antimatter is coming from our galactic center. But the culprit probably isn't dark matter, but merely neutron stars.
Finding a tiny planet around bright stars dozens or hundreds of light-years from Earth is extremely difficult.
Named "Supernova H0pe," it shows how JWST plus gravitational lensing can be used to solve the greatest puzzle facing astronomy today.
An annular eclipse is coming to Earth on October 14, 2023. Six months later, a total solar eclipse is headed our way. Here's the reason why.
How does star-formation, occurring in small regions within galaxies, affect the entire host galaxy that contains it? JWST holds the answers.
Cosmology is unlike other sciences. When our view of the Universe changes, so does our understanding of philosophy and science itself.
Neutrons can be stable when bound into an atomic nucleus, but free neutrons decay away in mere minutes. So how are neutron stars stable?