One of the greatest debates in the long history of astronomy has been that of exceptionalism versus mediocrity—and one of the great satisfactions of modern times has been watching…

The universe is the grandest merger story that there is. Complete with mysterious origins, forces of light and darkness, and chemistry complex enough to make the chemical conglomerate…

There was little expectation that anything important would occur at the 1933 meeting of the American Physical Society, which began on December 15 in the main lecture room of the physics…

Physics is often baffling, but one principle seems rock-solid: the law of conservation of energy. The world contains this thing called “energy” whose amount never changes. It can…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Calculations involving a higher dimension are guiding physicists toward a misstep in Stephen Hawking’s legendary…

The plan for an artificial Martian magnetosphere may sound “fanciful,” but researchers say that emerging research is starting to show that a miniature magnetosphere can be used…

Philip Marcus, you might say, is obsessed with the solar system’s most famous storm. The computational physicist and professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.The KATRIN experiment is closing in on the mass of the neutrino, which could point to new laws of particle physics…

Is our planet unique? The chances are slim. There are trillions of other galaxies, each of which has billions of suns. In a recent interview, Ed Young, a professor of geochemistry…

The young physicist sits at his computer, watching for signals from Cygnus. His name is Christopher Toth, and his white lab coat is too big for him. Christopher speaks with calm clarity.…