Before you even look through your telescope, you need to know where to begin. “If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control […]

It may be the only way to save the USA — and the world — from alternative facts. “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” –Ernest Rutherford There […]

The outer three can even be seen with a small, 1.5 meter telescope. This 2010 picture of three of the four known exoplanets orbiting HR 8799 represents the first time […]

It’s the most fundamental fabric of the Universe itself. But how does it work? “‘Space-time’ — that hideous hybrid whose very hyphen looks phoney.” –Vladimir Nabokov When it comes to understanding the Universe, there […]

How a telescope 100 times the size of Hubble is going to change everything. “For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like […]

Why do the asteroids that fall to Earth have the composition they do? A giant space collision 466 million years ago may be to blame. “Men of genius are often dull […]

Why weightlessness is possible, even if there’s no place you can hide from the Universe’s longest-range force. “It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that […]

What it means that 2016 is the hottest year on record. “There are now dozens of hockey sticks and the all come to the same basic conclusion. The recent warming does […]

How to turn a galaxy on, once and for all. “Speculating and predicting what lies beyond the boundary is fascinating. Finding out is even more fascinating.” –Wallace H. Tucker When two […]

And when you demand ‘perfectly identical,’ just how high of a bar are you setting? “Lives are snowflakes — unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another […]

Why it’s not “the next Hubble,” but “the first James Webb.” “…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is […]

Only a few galaxies exhibit this green glow in the nearby Universe. At early times, it’s practically all of the brightest ones. “The discovery that young galaxies are so unexpectedly […]

Just because we know it’s real doesn’t mean it’s easy to create in a lab. “For me the best answer is not in words but in measurements.” –Elena Aprile Atoms, molecules, […]

You don’t have to detect a particle to know that dark matter is real. “You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn’t care.” –Clayton Christensen In the 1970s, Vera Rubin’s observations showed […]

How Vera Rubin changed the Universe. “Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.” –Vera Rubin Look out at the night sky, and what do you see? […]

The first ultra-deep, ultra-wide field view of the Universe heralded what the 2010s would bring. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal […]

If we left on New Years Day, how close could we get if we kept accelerating every second of every day? “The very closest stars would require many years to visit, […]

The laws of physics are symmetric, but the Universe isn’t. Something’s gotta give. “If antimatter and matter make contact, both are destroyed instantly. Physicists call the process ‘annihilation.” –Dan Brown When […]

How a little knowledge can bring about some huge misconceptions… and how to fix it. “Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover […]

Three simple questions; an amazing story that goes way beyond Einstein! “Each ray of light moves in the coordinate system ‘at rest’ with the definite, constant velocity V independent of […]

That’s not how probability works. Or asteroids, for that matter. “Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What’s that have to do with space exploration? If we were moving outward from there, […]

Merging black holes are some of the most extreme events in the Universe. Could a modified event horizon reveal quantum gravity? “The bedrock nature of space and time and the unification […]

And defeat for new physics. Without something spectacular, there’s no reason to build a bigger collider. “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is […]

It’s not appealing to authority that’s the problem; it’s the false authorities and what comes next if you accept their nonsense. “When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask […]

Sometimes, what nature gives you is even better than what you hoped for. “Science doesn’t always go forwards. It’s a bit like doing a Rubik’s cube. You sometimes have to make […]

And what it found was a world swimming, literally, with possibilities. Just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are still planetary bodies. The misfit becomes the […]

From a speculative story to solid science! “The new ALMA images show the disk in unprecedented detail, revealing a series of concentric dusty bright rings and dark gaps, including intriguing features […]

Even if the Universe grows to infinity, there might not be enough space to hold all the possibilities. “We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.” –Marina […]

There’s never been a more important time to be aware of how the fate of the Earth depends on us. “We only have one planet that serves as an example and […]

Whether it’s “super” or not, you won’t want to miss this piece of the Universe. “From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab […]