Physics

A problem confronts cosmology: Two independent measurements of the universe’s expansion give incompatible answers. Now a third method, advanced by an astronomy pioneer, appears to bridge the divide.

A recent neutron star merger has defied astronomers’ expectations, leading them to question longstanding ideas about neutron stars and the supernovas that create them. “We have to go back to the drawing board.”

By watching for a special kind of flare, astronomers have identified the fingerprints of an Earth-size planet orbiting a distant star.

The mathematical physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf and host Steven Strogatz discuss the frontiers of string theory and why space and time might not be the most fundamental things in the universe.

Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.

As astronomers get better at finding the comets and asteroids of other stars, they’ll learn more about the universe and our place in it.

A photograph of the infant cosmos reveals the precise amounts of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, leaving precious little room for argument.

In this episode, Priya Natarajan, professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University, speaks with Steven Strogatz about her lifelong fascinations, including black holes, mapping the universe and early personal computers.

Summer sea ice could vanish later this decade, with disastrous consequences. It all depends on the physics of ice.