Space & Astrophysics
With advanced laser technology and an appropriate sail, we could accelerate objects to ~20% the speed of light. But would they survive?
New technology is helping physicists move forward in the search for the Theory of Everything.
In movies and TV shows, aliens look like pointy-eared humans. Is this realistic? If evolution is predictable, then it very well might be.
Centuries ago, the plague forced people into quarantine for years. Isaac Newton and Galileo used the time to revolutionize the world.
From before the Big Bang to the present day, the Universe goes through many eras. Dark energy heralds the final one.
Known as primordial black holes, they could thoroughly change our Universe’s history. But the evidence is strongly against them.
For many, it was just a successful launch like any other. But for scientists around the globe, it was a victory few dared to imagine.
Water on Mars is key for human survival on the Red Planet, not just for drinking but for growing food and making fuel and oxygen.
Even with leap years and long-term planning, our calendar won’t be good forever. Here’s why, and how to fix it.
A wild, compelling idea without a direct, practical test, the Multiverse is highly controversial. But its supporting pillars sure are stable.
Developing an awareness of and an appreciation for science is what we all truly need, not what we’ve been doing.
On larger and larger scales, many of the same structures we see at small ones repeat themselves. Do we live in a fractal Universe?
The surface and atmosphere is colored by ferric oxides. Beneath a very thin layer, mere millimeters deep in places, it’s not red anymore.
One day, we could fly across the U.S. in half an hour. A state-of-the-art hypersonic flight testing facility at UTSA could help make that dream a reality.
We know it couldn’t have began from a singularity. So how small could it have been at the absolute minimum?
Venus has far more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than Earth, which turned our sister planet into an inferno. But how did it get there?
Whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Universe, we can be assured of one thing: We are the only human beings in the cosmos.
With launch, deployment, calibration, and science operations about to commence, here are 10 facts that are absolutely true.
When three wise men gifted baby Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they had no idea one was made from colliding neutron stars.
The photometric filters for the Vera Rubin Observatory are complete and showcase why they are indispensable for astronomy.
The boiling new world, which zips around its star at ultraclose range, is among the lightest exoplanets found to date.
Whether NASA likes it or not, humans eventually will be having space sex.
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where’s everyone else?
Even if you or I will never actually visit these distant worlds, we now know they exist. They should fill us with wonder.
How can you “touch the Sun” if you’ve always been inside the solar corona, yet will never reach the Sun’s photosphere?
Astrophysicists once believed in a static Universe, containing only the Milky Way galaxy. Science definitively proved otherwise.
A newly discovered “ultrahot Jupiter” has the shortest orbit of any known gas giant.
From exoplanets to supermassive black holes to the first stars and galaxies, Webb will show us the Universe as we’ve never seen it before.
After more than two decades of precision measurements, we’ve now reached the “gold standard” for how the pieces don’t fit.
After decades of development, whether NASA’s Webb succeeds or fails all comes down to five critical milestones that are only days away.