Stories by Richard Panek

Richard Panek is the prizewinning author of The 4% Universe and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Science Writing. His most recent book is The Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Credit: Nick Higgins

Astronomy

The James Webb Space Telescope Has Launched: Now Comes the Hard Part

After years of delay, the most ambitious observatory ever built has at last left Earth. It now faces a high-stakes series of deployments in deep space

December 25, 2021 — Richard Panek

Space & Physics

How a Dispute over a Single Number Became a Cosmological Crisis

Two divergent measurements of how fast the universe is expanding cannot both be right. Something must give—but what?

February 18, 2020 — Richard Panek

Policy

Jim Peebles Richly Deserved His Nobel Prize

Even though, according to Alfred Nobel, he didn’t technically qualify

October 17, 2019 — Richard Panek | Opinion

Space & Physics

Bridging a Binary Universe

Modern physicists continue to enshrine the split between the heavens and the earth perceived by our ancestors

August 15, 2019 — Richard Panek

Space & Physics

Vera Rubin Didn't Discover Dark Matter

She wasn't even convinced it existed

December 29, 2016 — Richard Panek