SCIENCE

Ask Ethan: Is the Universe finite or infinite?

The Universe’s history, from cosmic inflation to the Big Bang to the present, is known. But whether it’s infinite or…

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Astronomers near a complete picture for how planets form

Newborn stars are surrounded only by a featureless disk. Debris disks persist for hundreds of millions of years. So when…

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Starts With A Bang podcast #106 — the troublesome hunt for Planet Nine

Out beyond Neptune are some fascinating bodies left over from our Solar System’s formation. Could one of them truly be…

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2024’s summer solstice is Earth’s earliest since 1796

On June 20, 2024, the summer solstice occurs at its earliest moment since 1796: when George Washington was President of…

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Ask Ethan: Why didn’t the Big Bang become a black hole?

If you bring too much mass or energy together in one location, you’ll inevitably create a black hole. So why…

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Is the “Methuselah star” really older than the Universe?

The Universe is precisely dated at 13.8 billion years old, but astronomers claim the Methuselah star is 14.5 billion years…

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Is fundamental science a victim of its own success?

Some think the reason fundamental scientific revolutions are so rare is because of groupthink. It’s not; it’s hard to mess…

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Ask Ethan: Will the Universe ever reach equilibrium?

The expanding Universe, in many ways, is the ultimate out-of-equilibrium system. After enough time passes, will we eventually get there?…

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The ultimate fate of every star that’s ever lived

In ~7 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and die. So will every star, eventually. Here are…

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Why reimagining the particle accelerator is so challenging

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever. To go even further, we’ll have to overcome something…

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