Are humans the only beings in the universe confronting global self-destruction? Or just the last ones standing?
Tag: Physics
Dark Galaxies: What Happens When Stars Are Nearly Invisible
To dark matter and dark energy, add dark galaxies — collections of stars so sparse and faint that they are all but invisible.
Galaxies in the Early Universe Were Shaped Like Bananas, Study Suggests
Images from the Webb telescope suggest that newborn galaxies look weirder than expected. Exactly how screwy was physics at the dawn of time?
Particle Physicists Offer a Road Map For the Next Decade
A “muon shot” aims to study the basic forces of the cosmos. But meager federal budgets could limit its ambitions.
The Big Nobel Prize Winners Were Short and Fast
The awards for physics and chemistry were a reminder that the most important processes in nature unfold on a scale divorced from everyday human affairs.
Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to 3 Scientists for Work on Electrons
Techniques resulting from the work of Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier let scientists capture the motions of subatomic particles moving at impossible speeds.
Lise Meitner, the ‘Atomic Pioneer’ Who Never Won a Nobel Prize
Lise Meitner developed the theory of nuclear fission, the process that enabled the atomic bomb. But her identity — Jewish and a woman — barred her from sharing credit for the discovery, newly translated letters show.
In Space, the Past Is Future (and Equally Unpredictable)
Not even the most advanced physics can reveal everything we want to know about the history and future of the cosmos, or about ourselves.
Back to New Jersey, Where the Universe Began
A half-century ago, a radio telescope in Holmdel, N.J., sent two astronomers 13.8 billion years back in time — and opened a cosmic window that scientists have been peering through ever since.
Muon Discovery Moves Physicists One Step Closer to a Theoretical Showdown
The deviance of a tiny particle called the muon might prove that one of the most well-tested theories in physics is incomplete.