Today, the star-formation rate across the Universe is a mere trickle: just 3% of what it was at its peak. Here’s what it was like back then.
Earth wasn’t created until more than 9 billion years after the Big Bang. In some lucky places, life could have arisen almost right away.
As early as we’ve been able to identify them, the youngest galaxies seem to have large supermassive black holes. Here’s how they were made.
For 550 million years, neutral atoms blocked the light made in stars from traveling freely through the Universe. Here’s how it then changed.
Even after the first stars form, those overdense regions gravitationally attract matter and also merge. Here’s how they grow into galaxies.
The first stars in the Universe were made of pristine material: hydrogen and helium alone. Once they die, nothing escapes their pollution.
The first stars took tens or even hundreds of millions of years to form, and then died in the cosmic blink of an eye. Here’s how.
The Big Bang’s hot glow faded away after only a few million years, leaving the Universe dark until the first stars formed. Oh, the changes!
The Universe is an amazing place. Under the incredible, infrared gaze of JWST, it’s coming into focus better than ever before.
As Uranus approaches its solstice, its polar caps, rings, and moons come into their best focus ever under JWST’s watchful eye. See it now!
Misinformation was extremely popular in 2023, as bad science often made global headlines. Learn the truth behind these 10 dubious stories.
In our Universe, matter is made of particles, while antimatter is made of antiparticles. But sometimes, the physical lines get real blurry.
Atomic nuclei form in minutes. Atoms form in hundreds of thousands of years. But the “dark ages” rule thereafter, until stars finally form.
With any occupation comes a risk of health and safety hazards. When it comes to being Santa Claus, the challenges are unique.
While ice itself is slick, slippery, and difficult to navigate across under most circumstances, skaters easily glide across the ice.
The first elements in the Universe formed just minutes after the Big Bang, but it took hundreds of thousands of years before atoms formed.
The brilliant mind who discovered the spacetime solution for rotating black holes claims singularities don’t physically exist. Is he right?
In the early stages of the hot Big Bang, there were only free protons and neutrons: no atomic nuclei. How did the first elements form from them?
In the early stages of the hot Big Bang, matter and antimatter were (almost) balanced. After a brief while, matter won out. Here’s how.
For a substantial fraction of a second after the Big Bang, there was only a quark-gluon plasma. Here’s how protons and neutrons arose.
In the very early Universe, practically all particles were massless. Then the Higgs symmetry broke, and suddenly everything was different.
In the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have existed. Why aren’t they equal today?
When the hot Big Bang first occurred, the Universe reached a maximum temperature never recreated since. What was it like back then?
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe became hot, dense, and filled with high-energy quanta all at once. Here’s what it was like.
Cosmic inflation is the state that preceded and set up the hot Big Bang. Here’s what the Universe was like during that time period.
With such a vast Universe and raw ingredients that seem to be everywhere, could it really be possible that humanity is truly alone?
Space weather poses a tremendous threat to all satellites, knocking all computer systems offline. Is that a recipe for Kessler syndrome?
Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in all the Universe. Is there some way to avoid “having to live with it?”
From the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang (and even before) to our dark energy-dominated present, how and when did the Universe grow up?
In general relativity, white holes are just as mathematically plausible as black holes. Black holes are real; what about white holes?