All the planets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects out there all point to the same conclusion: it’s giant impacts or no moons at all. Out of all the rocky planets […]

We can go to deeper and deeper levels, finding more fundamental quantities as we do. But is there a truly fundamental quantity? What is the Universe, at a fundamental level, […]

At ground zero, Trinitite, the green, glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up. The Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb […]

It’s a problem that we still haven’t solved, and it spells doom for all of our low-Earth orbiting satellites, even today. On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, […]

For more than 10 billion years, the star-formation rate across the Universe has been plummeting. Here’s the story. Take a look at a wide variety of galaxies in the Universe, and […]

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 […]

Hubble holds the record, finding a galaxy when the Universe was just 3% it’s age. In just a few years, James Webb will shatter it. One of the great scientific lessons […]

By time you see a pillar at all, almost all of your ‘formation’ is already finished. In the heart of the Eagle Nebula, the iconic Pillars of Creation loom as […]

These ten ghostly astronomical sights house some deep-and-frightening scientific truths within them. With a huge suite of different observatories for viewing the Universe, innumerable details can be revealed. This ‘Godzilla’ asterism […]

There may be a fundamental reason why time travel, backwards, is impossible. We’ve all had the dream of traveling back in time. Whether there’s a wrong we want to right, […]

Our existence is finite, but that’s no reason for despair. Here’s a version of the story we all should hear at least once. This world, and for that matter, the entire […]

They may have arisen less than 200 million years after the Big Bang, but the Universe was a very different place back then. When you look out beyond the Milky Way […]

Planets can ‘discover’ nuclear power on their own, naturally, without any intelligence. Earth did it 1.7 billion years before humans. If you were hunting for alien intelligence, looking for a surefire […]

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 […]

Billions of years from now, dark energy will push the rest of the Universe out of reach forever. These galaxies will be the last to go. A look at the night […]

If the Sun is 93 million miles away, why does sunlight filtering through the clouds or the trees spread out? Rays of sunshine are one of those natural sights that leave […]

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 […]

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, […]

Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]

Some wildfires will always be unavoidable. But nature, thankfully, recovers relatively quickly. The past few years have brought some devastating wildfires to large parts of the American west. A wildfire […]

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 […]

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 […]

With every second that goes by, tens of thousands of star disappear from our reach. And it’s getting worse. It’s been nearly a century since scientists first theorized that the Universe […]

Never draw a conclusion, no matter how ‘obvious,’ without doing the experiment first. We all love our most cherished ideas about how the world and the Universe works. Our conception […]

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 […]

The ices and rock aren’t green, and neither are the tails. So where does a comet’s green color come from? Every so often, with extreme regularity, comets will plunge from beyond […]

The story of John Couch Adams, “the man who failed to discover Neptune,” and his cosmic redemption. Perhaps its human nature to want to only think positive thoughts about our […]

Three great things all align this August, making the Perseids a can’t-miss show. Here’s how to take advantage. When it comes to meteor showers, we have these dazzling pictures in […]

Mars will never look as big as the full Moon. But it isn’t even the biggest planet. From humanity’s perspective, the Sun and Moon always dominate Earth’s skies. The Moon and […]