Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Credit: CNSA
Data from the Zhurong rover suggests the Red Planet was wet more recently than we thought.
mars sound
The high pitches from the flute and the harp would reach your ears before the notes from the tuba and the cello.
black hole spacetime
Everything is made of matter, not antimatter, including black holes. If antimatter black holes existed, what would they do?
advanced civilization
Do the laws of physics place a hard limit on how far technology can advance, or can we re-write those laws?
runaway black hole
At four million solar masses, the Milky Way's supermassive black hole is quite small for a galaxy its size. Did we lose the original?
Time isn't the same for everyone, even on Earth. Flying around the world gave Einstein the ultimate test. No one is immune from relativity.
The idea of black holes has been around for over 200 years. Today, we're seeing them in previously unimaginable ways.
Silhouette of a person standing on a field at night, gazing at a clear sky filled with stars and glowing celestial objects, evoking the wonder described by Jim Al-Khalili.
Popular media often frame scientists as having a cold, sterile view of the world. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
John Templeton Foundation
supermassive black hole
Astronomers in 2017 caught an image of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy far, far away. Doing it in our own galaxy is a huge milestone.
After years of analysis, the Event Horizon Telescope team has finally revealed what the Milky Way's central black hole looks like.
round
In Sun-like stars, hydrogen gets fused into helium. In the Big Bang, hydrogen fusion also makes helium. But they aren't close to the same.
cryovolcanoes
We have long thought that Pluto was completely frozen solid, but the discovery of cryovolcanoes challenges that assumption.
ancient greeks aliens
Speculation about the existence of aliens goes all the way back at least to the Greek philosophers. Their arguments will sound familiar.
planetary nebula
Everything that gets heated up has to, somehow, radiate that energy away. Here's what we see when that happens in the Universe.
local bubble
For a thousand light-years in all directions, there's a "bubble" that the Sun sits at the center of. Here's the story behind it.
Europa may be difficult to access. But if a recent study is correct, its subsurface ocean would be more accessible than previously thought.
science
Nature is a whole. The sciences should be, too.
gravity time
Extremely precise atomic clocks are not just of theoretical interest; they could help detect impending volcanic eruptions or melting glaciers.
humans universe
All life forms, anywhere in our Universe, are chemically connected yet completely unique.
life mars
Was there ever life on Mars? Is there life on Mars now? Did it originate there or here, on Earth? All possibilities are fascinating.
James Webb Hubble
Look out at a distant object, and you're not seeing it as it is today. It's size, brightness, and actual distance are all different.
It was supposed to have a 5.5-10 year lifetime, and take 6 months to calibrate. It's performing better than anyone anticipated.
If there are human-sized creatures walking around on other planets, would we be able to view them directly?
singularity
Singularities frustrate our understanding. But behind every singularity in physics hides a secret door to a new understanding of the world.
extraterrestrial
It didn't look like anything I'd seen before, but I'd be a great fool to consider "aliens" as a reasonable possibility.
time
We take for granted that time is real. But what if it's only an illusion, and a relative illusion at that? Does time even exist?
spinlaunch
Spin, spin, spin — fire! The startup’s radical system could make satellite launches cheaper and cleaner.
helium 3
Ancient helium-3 from the dawn of time leaks from the Earth, offering clues to our planet’s formation. A key question is where it leaks from.
planet 9
Pluto failed to meet the definition of a planet, but some astronomers think there might be a legitimate Planet 9 out there.