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Latest Black Hole Collision Comes With a Twist

June 1, 2017

The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory’s third detection further compounds the mystery of why black holes collide.

Journey to the Birth of the Solar System

May 25, 2017

Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.

Discoveries Fuel Fight Over Universe’s First Light

May 19, 2017

A series of observations at the very edge of the universe has reignited a debate over what lifted the primordial cosmic fog.

Q&A

A Defense of the Reality of Time

May 16, 2017

Time isn’t just another dimension, argues Tim Maudlin. To make his case, he’s had to reinvent geometry.

Exoplanet Puzzle Cracked by Jazz Musicians

May 10, 2017

A system of seven Earth-like exoplanets appeared to be unstable. Now their orbits have been rewritten in the music of the spheres.

The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution

May 2, 2017

As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information.

Q&A

A Cosmic-Ray Hunter Takes to the Sky

April 27, 2017

Angela Olinto’s new balloon experiment takes her one step closer to the unknown source of the most energetic particles in the universe.

A Cosmic Burst Repeats, Deepen­ing a Mystery

April 18, 2017

After a surprise discovery, astrophysicists are racing to understand superenergetic flashes of radio waves that sometimes beep out from distant galaxies.

Physicists Attack Math’s $1,000,000 Question

April 4, 2017

Physicists are attempting to map the distribution of the prime numbers to the energy levels of a particular quantum system.

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