Thomas Lewton

Scientists have never been able to adequately explain where lightning comes from. Now the first detailed observations of its emergence inside a cloud have exposed how electric fields grow strong enough to let bolts fly.

Years of conflicting neutrino measurements have led physicists to propose a “dark sector” of invisible particles — one that could simultaneously explain dark matter, the puzzling expansion of the universe, and other mysteries.

After the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope launches later this year, Laura Kreidberg will lead two efforts to check the weather on rocky planets orbiting other stars.

Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another.

A new proposal would use quantum hard drives to combine the light of multiple telescopes, letting astronomers create incredibly high-resolution optical images.

The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.

One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.

Three-dimensional supernova simulations have solved the mystery of why they explode at all.

The newly-measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process from the Big Bang matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.