The Universe

Every Friday, astronomer Phil Plait brings the universe over your head down to Earth.

Earth and its moon as seen from a spacecraft imager.

The UniverseOctober 10, 2025

How to See the Earth and Moon from Mars

If you pick the right time, our home world and our moon could be easily visible from the Red Planet

Phil Plait

A space image showing the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, through the eyes of two instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The UniverseOctober 3, 2025

Faster-Than-Light Galaxies Are a Fact of Life in Our Expanding Universe

When space itself expands, weird things can happen—like galaxies breaking the universe’s ultimate speed limit

Phil Plait

Fragments radiate outward in the aftermath of a deep-space collision between two asteroids. The Sun can be seen in the distance as a small yellow orb.

The UniverseSeptember 26, 2025

Asteroid ‘Families’ Reveal Hidden Histories and Impact Risks across the Solar System

Many asteroids are related, but their family trees can be hard to trace

Phil Plait

A jagged rainbowlike spectrum produced by Hubble Space Telescope observations of the core of the galaxy M84. Blue coloration (left) and red coloration (right) indicates where motions of stars and gas were towards and away from our solar system, respectively. These features can collectively be used to weigh the hidden supermassive black hole at M84's heart.

The UniverseSeptember 19, 2025

How Do You Weigh a Black Hole?

Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons

Phil Plait

JWST near-infrared data combined with Chandra X-ray data of the Bullet Cluster show many overlapping objects, including foreground stars, galaxies in galaxy clusters, and distorted background galaxies behind the galaxy clusters, set against the black background of space. A large blue oval, two pink areas, and a smaller blue area are layered on top

The UniverseSeptember 12, 2025

Mesmerizing New JWST Image Sharpens Our View of Dark Matter’s Intergalactic Playground

A swarm of galaxies called the Bullet Cluster is the biggest, best natural laboratory for studying dark matter that astronomers have ever seen

Phil Plait

An illustration of a supermassive black hole feeding on a disk of infalling matter

The UniverseSeptember 5, 2025

How Big Can a Black Hole Be?

Some black holes get extremely massive. Is there an upper limit to their growth?

Phil Plait

Colorful spiral dust clouds surround glowing central star

The UniverseAugust 29, 2025

How to See Faster-Than-Light Motion

Superluminal velocities are common but illusory

Phil Plait

Artwork of a small meteoroid impacting the surface of the Moon

The UniverseAugust 22, 2025

If This Asteroid Hits the Moon, Watch for Shooting Stars and Stricken Satellites

The 60-meter asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4 percent chance of hitting the moon. Could such a lunar collision create a dangerous new meteor shower?

Phil Plait

A full-disk image of Neptune, featuring the bluish planet's dark spot and bright cloud bands.

The UniverseAugust 15, 2025

One Year after Scientific American’s First Issue, the Solar System Grew by a Planet

Neptune’s discovery was a race that ended not long after this magazine came to be

Phil Plait

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this view of an expanding halo of light around a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis on February 8, 2004. The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a flashbulb-like pulse of light in 2002.

The UniverseAugust 8, 2025

Echoes of Light Illuminate the Cosmos

Bizarre phenomena called light echoes create strange, shifting shapes seen in some telescopic images and help astronomers chart the heavens above

Phil Plait

An artist's rendition of a supermassive black hole surrounded by a swirling accretion disk

The UniverseAugust 1, 2025

The Physics of Spinning Black Holes Explained

Scientists are uncovering how spinning black holes launch jets, warp spacetime and shape the cosmos

Phil Plait

Star-filled night sky with bright meteor streaks overhead

The UniverseJuly 25, 2025

The Sky Is Falling—From Another Star

Astronomers think small space rocks from beyond our solar system routinely strike Earth—but proving it isn’t easy

Phil Plait

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