For most of human history, the night sky has been a place where stars, planets, and faraway galaxies can be seen. But what was there before the first stars came to life? Was the universe full of light when it was young, or was it a dark void? The answer is much more interesting than ...
The Sun’s poles have long been a cosmic mystery buried from Earth’s perspective by the simple fact that our planet, along with every other spacecraft, orbits within the equatorial plane. Thanks to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter spacecraft, however, mankind has now seen the solar south pole in history. Captured in March 2025, ...
At the core of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), a cosmic behemoth is challenging preconceptions. Renowned for being the first black hole ever directly photographed, the supermassive black hole M87 has just exposed another amazing secret: it devours matter even faster and spins at a blistering 80% of the maximum speed in the universe. Using ...
Astronomers have been narrating a dramatic tale about the fate of our galaxy for more than a century: the Milky Way is relentlessly on collision with Andromeda, its enormous neighbor. Once judged unavoidable within 4–5 billion years, the cosmic smash-up would destroy spiral galaxies and create a new, shapeless elliptical galaxy known as “Milkomeda.” But ...
The speed of light was a mystery for millennia, a fugitive constant that escaped measurement and understanding. Now among the most basic foundations of contemporary physics, it shapes our knowledge of space, time, and the very fabric of reality. Light’s speed is more than just a number; it’s a cosmic speed limit, a ruler for ...
