Astrophysics

A couple of months ago, the sun sported the largest sunspot we've seen in the last 24 years. This monstrous spot, visible to the naked eye (that is, without magnification, but with protective eyewear of course), launched more than 100 flares.

In astronomy, bigger is almost always better. The size of a telescope’s aperture (or primary optical element) not only determines how many pesky little photons it can capture, but also the ultimate resolution of the image that can be formed.

Not long ago I came across a piece in the Scientific American archives from the earliest days of very-long baseline radio interferometry, the technique employed by the Event Horizon Telescope.

The innovation industry faces an uncertain future, as long as the United States R&D Tax Credit remains a Congressional roller coaster ride.

New theories suggest the big bang was not the beginning, and that we may live in the past of a parallel universe

Anthropologist Cameron Smith talks about the cultural and genetic implications of long-term space missions

Should you happen to live in the United Kingdom, Matt Parker — a.k.a. @StandUpMaths on Twitter — probably needs no introduction.

I love apostates, believers in or, better yet, conceivers of a theory who turn against it. They restore my faith in science, because they show that scientists can overcome attachment to their own brainchildren, a feat that is essential for progress and cannot be taken for granted.

822 Martian days after landing, NASA’s Curiosity rover, carrying the Mars Science Laboratory, continues on its extraordinary journey across landscapes that are both utterly alien, and remarkably familiar.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Mariner IV spacecraft (November 28, 1964). In total, the mission gave us 21 complete images of Mars, including this, our first close view of the planet—courtesy of data transmitted by the interplanetary probe and earth-bound scientists wielding pastels (below).

In an earlier blog post about Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster movie, Interstellar, I lauded the film for its ambition, its visuals     and the strong performances of its cast.

In the last few years, stories have abounded in the press of the successes of the Large Hadron Collider, most notably the discovery of the Higgs boson.