Physics

In an era when untestable ideas such as the multiverse hold sway, Michela Massimi defends science from those who think it hopelessly unmoored from physical reality.

Detailed images of disks swirling around young stars show the details of how solar systems come to be.

Mathematicians have disproved the strong cosmic censorship conjecture. Their work answers one of the most important questions in the study of general relativity and changes the way we think about space-time.

Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it.

A roundup of some of the most important discoveries gleaned so far from the Gaia space observatory’s new map of the galaxy.

Zeta values seem to connect distant geometric worlds. In a new proof, mathematicians finally explain why.

Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate yield two conflicting answers. Many point to the possibility of new physics at work, but a new analysis argues that unseen errors could be to blame.

New observations of extreme astrophysical systems have “brutally and pitilessly murdered” attempts to replace Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems.