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Latest Black Hole Collision Comes With a Twist
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
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
A series of observations at the very edge of the universe has reignited a debate over what lifted the primordial cosmic fog.
A Defense of the Reality of Time
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
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
As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information.
A Cosmic-Ray Hunter Takes to the Sky
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
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
Physicists are attempting to map the distribution of the prime numbers to the energy levels of a particular quantum system.