Lab Notes

As the Atlas V rocket’s inferno lit up the night sky early in the evening of Nov. 19, 2016, it was as if the...

The holiday season is a peak time for companies that sell the novelty gift of “naming a star,” with a framed certificate and a...

In September 1859, the most powerful explosion in recorded history burst from the surface of the sun, releasing more energy than a billion of...

In 1973, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke suggested that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Accurate predictions of the weather several...

Four billion miles from the Earth on New Year’s Eve, a spacecraft traveling at 32,000 miles per hour zoomed past a tiny object roughly...

As seen from Earth, a solar eclipse takes place when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, partially or totally obscuring the sun....

In late September, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg led the largest global climate strike in history, inspiring 7.6 million people in 185 countries to urge...

In December 2004, astronomers in Arizona discovered an asteroid the size of a cruise ship that appeared to be on a collision course with...

In his 2001 book Who Owns the Sky, entrepreneur Peter Barnes suggests that any system designed to tax heat-trapping pollution must redistribute the revenue...

In 1916, Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicted ripples in the fabric of space known as gravitational waves. Just as accelerating electrons create...

In last year’s blockbuster movie Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey leads a team of astronauts on a quest to find a new planet like Earth, after humanity collectively destroys the climate on the only home we’ve got...

In 1966, astronomer Olin Wilson started what would become a decades-long pursuit, searching for an answer to a simple question. Wilson knew that observations...