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Big Bang Theory
In the far future, the last star burns out, stellar corpses get violently ejected, and galaxies accelerate away. And then the fun begins. For centuries, the biggest questions about our Universe […]
If it can stretch the Universe from the size of a subatomic particle to billions of light years in a fraction of a second, why doesn’t Einstein’s relativity forbid it? When […]
Among the general public, people compare it to the aether, phlogiston, or epicycles. Yet almost all astronomers are certain: dark matter and dark energy exist. Here’s why. If you go by […]
It took the Universe 9.2 billion years to create the Earth, and another 4 billion for complex life. Could we have gotten there faster? The story of how the Universe came […]
If everything was hot, dense, and super close-together at the Big Bang, what kept us from collapsing into a singularity? The Big Bang is one of the most counterintuitive ideas […]
There have been a lot of public advocates from the “no dark matter” camp, getting lots of popular attention. But the Universe still needs dark matter. Here’s why. If you took […]
If the multiverse is real, why hasn’t our Universe, in a sea of infinite possibilities, run into another one at least once? The Universe we inhabit is vast, full of matter […]
Distances in the expanding Universe don’t work like you’d expect. Unless, that is, you learn to think like a cosmologist. There are a few fundamental facts about the Universe — its origin, […]
If you want to know how we get something from nothing, you’d better understand what we mean! When we look around at our world and Universe today, we talk and think […]
If nothing can escape from beneath the event horizon, where do these phenomena come from? The most important feature of a black hole is that it has an event horizon: a […]
How did black holes get so supermassive so fast? Astrophysics may be about to find out, thanks to three big 2017 discoveries. There’s a big problem when we look at […]
There’s so much that we’ve discovered, looking as deeply as possible into the void. But what are we missing? Start with the laws of physics, a Universe full of a specific […]
Just because it isn’t Thanksgiving anymore doesn’t mean we don’t have an entire Universe to be thankful for. Every day, we have a choice whether we take our lives, our existence, […]
The first stars formed almost half a billion years before we could see their light. Here’s why. At the moment of the Big Bang, the Universe was full of matter and […]
If you think we know it all, you’ll never be ready for the next big breakthrough. When you’re taught the scientific method, you think of a neat procedure you can […]
Very sure. Here’s how we know. You’ve no doubt heard that the Universe itself has been around for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, and that scientists are extremely confident […]
Either possibility offers a tremendous existence, but philosophically, there’s so much more to think about. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, […]
From the most beautiful to the most impactful, some of these are so powerful it’s breathtaking. “Truth in science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact […]
One of cosmic inflation’s cofounders came out against it, calling it not even science. But it is… and so much more. “There’s no obvious reason to assume that the very same […]
From what it’s expanding into to whether things are moving faster-than-light, this clears up some of our greatest misconceptions. “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders […]
Something’s got to be wrong. But is it what we think about the star, the Universe, or something else? “The older you get, the more you realize that the way […]
Black holes shouldn’t be this big, much less this big so many billions of years ago. Yet here we are. “Ultramassive black holes — that is, black holes with masses exceeding 10 billion […]
From a Universe that went no bigger than our Milky Way to the trillions of galaxies in our expanding Universe, our knowledge increased one step at a time. “Gamow was fantastic […]
Why does the Universe have the properties it has? There may be no natural reason at all. “When you listen to a lecture, you should not have any idea of yourself. […]
‘Let there be light’ isn’t just biblical. It’s science. “By its very nature science knows no boundaries. Walling off any group, for any reason, from full participation damages the entire enterprise […]
How the Universe’s expansion rate continues to baffle us. “In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.” –Henry Miller It’s the most fundamental law of special […]
Now we know, on every scale. “There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without […]
Never heard of SKA, the square kilometer array? Once it starts taking data, you’ll never forget it. “Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for […]
There’s a point beyond which we cannot go, there are things beyond that we cannot know. But here’s what we expect. “The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it […]
One of inflation’s co-founders lashes out against the community. But is there a scientific leg to stand on? “…an understanding of the infinite tree of universes seems to be needed in […]