Whether two particles collide inside an accelerator or in the depths of space is irrelevant; all that matters is that we can detect the debris of what comes out, including newly created “daughter” particles. Although the flux of high-energy particles...
In theory, every quanta within each quantum field theory has a spectrum of excitations it can occupy, and those excitations occur within that quantum field theory, impacting the zero-point energy of empty space. Given the particles and fields we know...
Earth, as well as all planets and moons with rocky surfaces, has experienced a large number of collisions from objects of extraterrestrial origin. Any impact that’s massive and energetic enough, in principle as well as in practice, could cause a...
This illustration shows toponium, made of a top-antitop pair of quarks, bound together into a meson rather than the (more typical) situation where they decay away before forming a bound state. Toponium wasn’t initially expected, but observations from the CMS...
This image, taken with a small telescope on the night of July 1, 2025, shows what was then known as the candidate interstellar object A11pI3Z, which has since been renamed 3I/ATLAS due to its confirmed interstellar nature. The smears are...
Mercury, Venus, and likely Earth will all be devoured.During the main phase of a star’s life, planets can orbit at nearly any distance from it, including very close in. As the star evolves, it becomes a subgiant and eventually a...
This image shows the Large Aperture Telescope’s colossal, 6-meter primary and secondary mirrors at the Simons Observatory in February of 2025. The telescope has already seen first light, and will soon begin delivering new CMB science as never before. (Credit:...
This selection of 55 galaxies from the JWST’s GLASS Early Release Science program spans a variety of ranges in redshift and mass. This helps teach us what shapes galaxies take on over a range of masses and stages in cosmic...
In comparing JWST images of Uranus (left) and Neptune (right), features such as rings, moons, and cloudy “bright spots” on the planets are clearly visible. Although Neptune appears much smaller than Uranus, that’s because it’s an extra ~50% farther away...
This “fleet chart” catalogues every NASA science mission across the four main subdivisions — Earth science, heliophysics, planetary science, and astrophysics — that is active as of July 2024. Many more planned, future missions are in various stages of development....
