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Big Bang Theory
The first planets were only gas. The second included rocky ones, but life wasn’t possible. Here’s how we finally got there. Here in the Universe today, potentially habitable planets are practically […]
The cosmic story of us, from before the Big Bang until today, is a story that all of us share. Enjoy it, in just 200 words. In the beginning, there was […]
It took more than 9 billion years for Earth to form: the only known planet housing life. But it could have happened much, much sooner. The cosmic story that unfolded following […]
For hundreds of millions of years, most of the starlight never made it through space. Here’s how that changed. Forming stars sounds like the easiest thing in the Universe to do. […]
The cosmic records we have are meant to be broken, but oh, have we ever gone so far. The great cosmic abyss contains more that humanity can ever hope to see, […]
Instead of eternal expansion, could we just be part of a universal cosmic cycle? There are few questions that can keep us up at night the way pondering the eventual fate […]
The Big Bang happened everywhere at once, but stars are a different story. The Universe, back at its inception, was almost perfectly identical everywhere. It was the same high temperature […]
For 100 million years, there was only creation in the Universe. Meet our first moments of destruction. The cosmic story that gave rise to us is a story rife with […]
If all you see is low-energy light in a myriad of directions, you can’t be sure. But this light comes from the Big Bang. There are a lot of things that […]
These three reasons are why there’s no getting around the fact that astronomy needs the James Webb Space Telescope. Even the most powerful telescope in history, the Hubble Space Telescope, […]
Not everyone is satisfied with the Big Bang. But every alternative is a disastrous failure. It’s treated as though it’s an unassailable scientific truth: 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe […]
One of the most popular viral videos about space is dead wrong. But it gives us a chance to learn something incredible. There are a lot of moving parts to […]
It took hundreds of thousands of years to make atoms for the first time. If things were just a little different, it could have taken an eternity. When it comes […]
The most massive star in the known Universe is 260 times as heavy as our Sun. But viewing the early Universe will shatter that record. Place enough mass together in one […]
Our Universe may not be all there is, was, or ever will be, after all. There’s been a lot of speculative ideas put forth about the Multiverse, and I dare say […]
Before there were humans, planets, or even stars and galaxies, we had to make the first elements. Here’s how they happened. From the first moments of Big Bang to the […]
The Universe was born matter-antimatter symmetric. Here’s what happened when the last of our antimatter disappeared. Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first 25 […]
The Universe is an enormous place, but we can’t see all the way back to the beginning. Here’s the latest record-breaker. No matter how far back we look in the […]
Did the Universe begin at time t=0? Did space and time emerge from that? The Universe, today, is expanding and cooling, as the volume of the Universe increases while the number […]
The Universe was born with equal amounts of matter and antimatter. How did matter win? 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment of the Big Bang, the Universe was the hottest […]
If we know how big the observable Universe is, why can’t we figure out how big the unobservable part is? 13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang occurred. The Universe was […]
Immediately after the Big Bang, the Universe was more energetic than ever. What was it like? When we look out at the Universe today, we see that it’s full of stars […]
Cosmic inflation is what happened before, and set up, the Big Bang. Here’s what it’s like to live in an inflating Universe. Our Universe today is full of matter and […]
Many hoped we could do without dark matter. On cosmic scales, the evidence has finally spoken. For over 40 years, scientists have argued over dark matter’s existence. The extended rotation curve […]
What’s going on at the smallest and largest scales of all? Let’s look to the absolute limits of physics. Have you ever wondered what’s out there in the Universe, on the […]
Even before we have the James Webb Space Telescope, a controversy over when the first stars formed is growing. As far back as our most powerful telescopes have ever looked, we’ve […]
If dark energy were stronger or weaker, everything would be pretty much the same. And that’s a puzzle. After the Big Bang, the Universe was full of matter and radiation. It […]
Dark energy tells us that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating. Here’s what that means for our disappearing Universe. One of the biggest surprises for humanity about the Universe is that […]
In 2015, the ultra-distant galaxy CR7 was measured to have hydrogen and helium, but no carbon or oxygen. With new ALMA observations, there’s carbon after all. As brilliant as our Universe’s […]
Just one equation relates the expansion of space to all the matter and energy we have. If you know this, you can know the fate of the Universe. Last week, […]