Galaxies

At a 1990 conference on cosmology, I asked attendees, who included folks like Stephen Hawking, Michael Turner, James Peebles, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, to nominate the smartest living physicist.

The latest data from the Planck satellite suggest the highly touted finding of spacetime ripples may have been mistaken
 

Astronomers have identified the Milky Way’s cosmic address—inside the supercluster Laniakea, which means “immense heaven” in Hawaiian. Clara Moskowitz reports

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

A new simulation could change the way astronomers think about O-stars

New measurement points to possible error in ESA survey that could also affect the agency's new Gaia mission

We’re used to thinking of the space between the stars as void, bereft of all but the most sparsely distributed atoms and molecules, or the occasional microscopic grain of silicon or carbon dust.

This post is one in a series covering, and expanding on, topics in the book The Copernicus Complex (Scientific American/FSG).           The conversation usually goes like this: Do you think we’re alone in the universe?

The detection of the chemical signature of a relic star brings long-awaited evidence for massive stellar ancestors

This week on Virtually Speaking Science, I chatted with astrophysicist Katie Freese, author of a new book, The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter.

Citizen-science project identifies particles caught by NASA craft as having likely interstellar origin.

Before they can see Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) must complete an epic to-do list.