History of Science

The Martian new year arrives with the Red Planet’s vernal equinox. Explaining why requires a deep dive into celestial mechanics and Earth’s calendrical history

It is difficult to disentangle Russian and Chinese scientists from international science cooperation. That is a good thing

A strange supernova remnant first appeared as a “guest star” seen in 1181 by sky watchers in China and Japan

Science is filled with tools that once seemed revolutionary and are now just part of the research tool kit. That time may have come for artificial intelligence

For the first time, we are sending a spacecraft to explore an alien ocean world—a moon that might host life today

Joint Nobel laureates aren’t necessarily direct scientific collaborators, and the prize money isn’t always split evenly

A famous prediction that microchips improve exponentially over time can be applicable in unrelated developments, such as the technology used to discover colliding black holes

A new explanation for the Wow! signal suggests it was a chance detection of a furious flare crashing into a hydrogen cloud. But some researchers doubt that this idea has truly cracked the case

A play celebrates the agreement that opened nations worldwide to accepting the science of climate change

New research suggests the Great Red Spot we see on Jupiter today is an entirely different giant storm from the one astronomers observed more than three centuries ago

The withdrawal after 22 years of a controversial stem cell paper highlights how perverse incentives can distort scientific progress

Cosmic happenstance and biological evolution come together to create a road map to the stars