Cosmology

Unexplained gamma rays streaming from the galactic center may have been produced by dark matter, but more mundane explanations are also possible
 

Is complex life rare in the cosmos? The idea that it could be rests on the observation that the existence of life like us – with large, energy hungry, complicated cells – may be contingent on a number of very specific and unlikely factors in the history of the Earth.

Think you know about the Moon? I did, but then I started reading ‘The New Moon: Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation‘ (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and realized that my knowledge amounted to a teensy scrap of lunar dust.

In 2007 Garrett Lisi was a 39-year-old physicist, unaffiliated with any institution, toiling in obscurity on what he called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything,” which could account for all of nature’s forces.

Take part in a citizen-science project by helping researchers track high-energy cosmic rays via a network of smartphone users. Clara Moskowitz reports    

 

Sound waves imitate famed Hawking radiation, energy spit out from the great cosmic sinkholes

NASA's rovers and orbiters at Mars will witness a close encounter with a comet on October 19, an event that happens once every million years

Nine scientists became new Nobel Laureates this week when the 2014 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Physics and Physiology or Medicine were announced.

A heavenly alignment will offer a view of a blood-red moon in Earth’s shadow

Here in North America, we are in the midst of a tetrad of lunar eclipses, the second one visible Wednesday morning. A tetrad of lunar eclipses means that there are four total lunar eclipses in a row.

Looking up into the bright Mojave sky in 2004, I strained to keep my eyes on the tiny spaceship 50,000 feet up. "Three, two, one... release, release, release!" came the call over the loudspeakers.