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Astrophysics
If our Universe were born a little differently, there wouldn't have been any planets, stars, galaxies, or chemically interesting reactions.
Perhaps the whole Universe is the result of a vacuum fluctuation, originating from what we could call quantum nothingness.
"Superhabitable" planets might be real, but Earth is probably as good as it gets.
Does humanity have a moral imperative to seed life on lifeless worlds? And should we avoid colonizing a planet if life already exists there?
Einstein's most famous equation is E = mc², which describes the rest mass energy inherent to particles. But motion matters for energy, too.
A surprising JWST discovery around Fomalhaut has a different, superior explanation: not a great dust cloud, but a mere background object.
The classic picture of Jupiter's great rocky core might be entirely wrong.
Massive objects like black holes, stars, and rogue planets routinely pass near our Solar System. An ensuing comet storm could destroy us.
There may be a symmetrical interdependence between order and chaos.
When the Universe was first born, the ingredients necessary for life were nowhere to be found. Only our "lucky stars" enabled our existence.
We can reasonably say that we understand the history of the Universe within one-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. That's not good enough.
Some say that the Sun is a green-yellow color, but our human eyes see it as white, or yellow-to-red during sunset. What color is it really?
Archaeologists can learn how societies lived by studying what they left behind when they died. Astronomers are doing much the same thing.
Yes, "the laws of physics break down" at singularities. But something really weird must have happened for black holes to not possess them.
A new, unexpected brightening, just 3 years after a massive dimming event, has astronomers watching Betelgeuse. Is a supernova imminent?
The odds are slim, but the consequences would be literally world-ending. There really is a chance of a black hole devouring the Earth.
The problem of the electroweak horizon haunts the standard model of cosmology and beckons us to ask how deep a rethink the model may need.
Contrary to common experience, not everything needs a medium to travel through. Overcoming that assumption removes the need for an aether.
Recasting the iconic Carrington Event as just one of many superstorms in Earth’s past, scientists reveal the potential for even more massive eruptions from the sun.
The nearby, bright star Fomalhaut had the first optically imaged planetary candidate. Using JWST's eyes, astronomers found so much more.
They're the most common type of exoplanet known today, and many astronomers have called them "super-habitable." None of that is true.
Before there were planets, stars, and galaxies, before even neutral atoms or stable protons, there was the Big Bang. How did we prove it?
The standard model of cosmology has a big new problem: Some galaxies seem to be too old.
This oddball system of three stars might be our best chance at finding nearby life in the Universe.
Einstein's relativity overthrew the notion of absolute space and time, replacing them with a spacetime fabric. But is spacetime truly real?
What began as an annoyance ended as a Nobel Prize-winning discovery about the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe.
Many planets will eventually be devoured by their parent star. For the first time, we caught a star in the act, eating its innermost planet!
The conservation of energy is one of the most fundamental laws governing our reality. But in the expanding Universe, that's just not true.
It's not about fairness. It's about using every possible advantage.
These high-mass, rapidly star-forming galaxies have called modern cosmology into question. But hi-res simulations show no tension at all.