To protect their kings, ancient Mesopotamians discovered how to predict eclipses, which were associated with the deaths of rulers. This eventually led to the birth of astronomy.
A composite photograph of the solar eclipse on Dec. 26, 2019 in Liwa, United Arab Emirates.
(Abed Ismail/Unsplash)
Eclipses have long fascinated and intrigued people, and anticipation of the total solar eclipse on April 8 is no exception. The beauty, history, mythology and science of eclipses justify the hype.
An image of GAL-CLUS-022058s — the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered.
(ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Jha)
The discussions in the committee are always open, frank and sometimes emotional, but never hostile.
Artist concept of Gravity Probe B orbiting the Earth to measure space-time, a four-dimensional description of the universe including height, width, length, and time.
(NASA)
The gravitational field can affect space and time: the stronger gravity is, the slower time moves. This prediction of General Relativity can be used to reveal hidden forces acting on dark matter.
As new and powerful telescopes gather new data about the universe, they reveal the limits of older theories.
(Shutterstock)
Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests that our universe originated in a Big Bang. But black holes, and their gravitational forces, challenge the limits of Einstein’s work.
Galaxy NGC 6822, neighbouring the Milky Way galaxy, being studied to learn more about stars and dust in the early universe.
(NASA/James Webb Space Telescope)
Rajendra Gupta, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
A new hypothesis suggests that the universe may be twice as old as we had believed. Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope provide new information on the rate of the universe’s expansion.
Creativity involves generating something new – a product or solution that didn’t previously exist.
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Researchers had college students and AI take a standardized test in creative thinking, and all of them were scored by trained evaluators who didn’t know in advance that some had been completed by AI.
Visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima view a large-scale panoramic photograph of the destruction following the 1945 bombing.
Carl Court/Getty Images
The United States and Russia, the two biggest nuclear powers, have no imminent plans for talks on a nuclear deal. That should change, writes a former US diplomat.
Lise Meitner, in the front row, sits alongside many male colleagues at the Seventh Solvay Physics Conference in 1933.
Corbin Historical via Getty Images
The trailer for ‘Oppenheimer’ fails to include female physicists, which is indicative of a broader media trend that, if reversed, could lead to greater gender diversity in science.
Bright, flickering galaxies called quasars were thought to pose a problem for our understanding of the cosmos – but new research shows Einstein was right yet again.
When two massive objects – like black holes or neutron stars – merge, they warp space and time.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Black holes can have a mass equivalent to that of millions of suns. Other, smaller, black holes can combine the mass of Mount Everest into the size of an atom.