Latest Articles
Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope
A new proposal would use quantum hard drives to combine the light of multiple telescopes, letting astronomers create incredibly high-resolution optical images.
The Near-Magical Mystery of Quasiparticles
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.
Growing Inventory of Black Holes Offers a Radical Probe of the Cosmos
One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.
Secret Ingredient Found to Power Supernovas
Three-dimensional supernova simulations have solved the mystery of why they explode at all.
Physicists Pin Down Nuclear Reaction From Moments After the Big Bang
The newly-measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process from the Big Bang matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.
Some Physicists See Signs of Cosmic Strings From the Big Bang
Subtle aberrations in the clockwork blinking of stars could become “the result of the century.” That’s if the distortions are produced by a network of giant filaments left over from the birth of the universe.
The Physicist Who Slayed Gravity’s Ghosts
Claudia de Rham showed how theories of “massive gravity” could potentially get rid of the need for dark energy.
How the Bits of Quantum Gravity Can Buzz
New calculations show how hypothetical particles called gravitons would give rise to a special kind of noise.
What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion?
Physicists have proposed extra cosmic ingredients that could explain the faster-than-expected expansion of space.