This composite image of supernova SN 1181 showcases the full extent of the nebula in X-rays (blue contours), with optical and element-specific signatures shown in red and yellow light, respectively. (Credit: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/U. Manitoba/C. Treyturik, (XMM-Newton) ESA/C. Treyturik; Optical:...
From a region of space as small as can be imagined (all the way down to the Planck scale), cosmological inflation causes space to expand exponentially: relentlessly doubling and doubling again with each tiny fraction-of-a-second that elapses. Although this empties...
Einstein, contrary to the popular narrative, wasn’t a lone genius, but rather only achieved the successes that he did because of his friends, colleagues, professors, and the larger community of physicists, astronomers, and mathematicians that he was a part of....
This 1934 photograph shows Einstein in front of a blackboard, deriving special relativity for a group of students and onlookers. Although special relativity is now taken for granted, it was revolutionary when Einstein first put it forth, and doesn’t even...
This image shows the same astronomical object, the Ring Nebula, in three different views: from Hubble (at left), from JWST’s NIRCam instrument (center), and from JWST’s MIRI instrument (right). At longer wavelengths, features unseen in visible light spectacularly appear, and...
This composite map shows stars from ESA’s Gaia mission and dust from ESA’s Planck mission, together, along with the first 1% of the Euclid catalog’s data, just released, shown in yellow. A 36x zoom into the Euclid region reveals galaxy...
The modern cosmic picture of our universe’s history begins not with a singularity that we identify with the Big Bang, but rather with a period of cosmic inflation that stretches the universe to enormous scales, with uniform properties and spatial...
Different observers will mark different times and different spatial locations as far as the occurrence of events is concerned. However, for every observer in all frames of reference, the quantity known as the spacetime interval (or Einstein interval, as Minkowski...
The Europa Clipper mission represents NASA’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world within our Solar System. Covered in exterior ice and with a strongly suspected worldwide ocean beneath it, Europa is one of the best candidate worlds for...
The Universe is a vast, diverse, and interesting place, full of matter and energy, in various forms, playing out on the stage of spacetime, in accordance with the laws of physics. This is exemplified by this Hubble space telescope image...
