Scientific Advancement

Scientific Advancement

Millikan Lemaitre and Einstein
Not everyone accepts the scientific consensus; some even make careers out of challenging it. But only a select few do it the right way.
Astro2020
US science is worth fighting for, but so are the science projects and scientists denied opportunities. Here are 4 paths all worth exploring.
A detailed image of the Eta Carinae star system could trick science headlines with its bright, colorful clouds of gas and dust in blue, red, and purple hues swirling around a luminous central region.
Dark matter, dark energy, and the Big Bang are all part of a solid scientific foundation. Here's why popular media often claims otherwise.
A field of galaxies in deep space, featuring a bright spiral galaxy at the lower right with a stellar stream escaping the galaxy, and a large, bright red star at the upper left.
Stellar streams are faint trails of stars that appear to "stream" out of galaxies. A new one, escaping galaxy M61, may point to many others.
ufo lights liverpool
Physicist Daniel Whiteson challenges the notion that all intelligent species would eventually uncover the same laws of nature. Do you agree?
Digital illustration of a DNA double helix in red and blue, set against a black background.
“We can build AI scientists that are better than we are… these systems can be superhuman,” says the FutureHouse co-founder.
A vivid depiction of a cosmic event showing a jet of orange and red energy extending from a bright source in the vastness of space, surrounded by stars and interstellar matter.
With the discovery of Porphyrion, we've now seen black hole jets spanning 24 million light-years: the scale of the cosmic web.
Two individuals in hard hats and safety glasses working on complex machinery with numerous cables and metal components in an industrial setting.
DUNE is designed to detect the Universe's most antisocial particle: the neutrino.
An illustration of a futuristic city cradled in a hand, set against a gradient orange background, with the title "The Techno-Humanist Manifesto" at the top.
The world needs a moral defense of progress based in humanism and agency.
symmetric
If the electromagnetic and weak forces unify to make the electroweak force, maybe, at higher energies, something even grander happens?
An image of the future of US astronomy with a large telescope inside a building.
Ground-based facilities enable the greatest scientific production in all of astronomy. The NSF needs to be ambitious, and it's now or never.
An image of a pink spiral on a black background depicting uncertainty.
If nature were perfectly deterministic, atoms would almost instantly all collapse. Here's how Heisenberg uncertainty saves the atom.
galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0 triply lensed supernova
Named "Supernova H0pe," it shows how JWST plus gravitational lensing can be used to solve the greatest puzzle facing astronomy today.
stephan's quintet miri JWST
What are supermassive black holes, how common are they, and how do they grow up throughout cosmic history? Listen and find out!
Earth exoplanet direct imaging degraded
NASA has finally chosen which flagship mission, like Hubble and JWST, will launch in ~2040. Detecting alien life is now a reachable goal.
Laser-guided lightning systems could someday offer much greater protection than lightning rods.
“The more we understand ourselves and the universe, the more magnificent it is.”
jwst
Hubble revolutionized astronomy more than once. Here's what we can expect from the James Webb Space Telescope.
The idea of gravitational redshift crossed Einstein's mind years before General Relativity was complete. Here's why it had to be there.
plastic-eating bacteria
Scientists have discovered enzymes from several plastic-eating bacteria. So, why are our oceans still full of plastic pollution?
Science doesn't fit neatly into ideology.
John Templeton Foundation
atom
Atomic clocks keep time accurately to within 1 second every 33 billion years. Nuclear clocks could blow them all away.
It started with a 22-year-old woman, named in papers only as Mrs McK.
Thou shalt not conclude “aliens” from insufficient data. When it comes to what’s out there in this Universe, perhaps the only thing that’s greater than our cosmic ignorance is the […]
Over the past 30 years, we’ve revolutionized what we know about the Universe. But we couldn’t have done it without these lessons. On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope rocketed […]
We’ve never found eight stars bound together in the same stable system. But nature might make it so. The Universe that we have is often more wondrous and bizarre than even […]
And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]
After Kepler but before James Webb, TESS is preparing astronomers for the coming exoplanet revolution. There are always new discoveries and achievements occurring in science, and certain fields have experienced […]
The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]
Before there were gravitational waves, multi-messenger astronomy got its start with the neutrino. Sometimes, the best-designed experiments fail. The effect you’re looking for might not even occur, meaning that a […]