Sagittarius A* is a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Now that astronomers have imaged it, they can begin to learn more about black holes within other galaxies across the universe.
It may look like athletes in bobsled, luge and skeleton simply grab a sled and hang on until the bottom, but high-speed physics and tiny motions mean the difference between gold and a crash.
Hypervelocity stars were discovered only 15 years ago and are the closest things in existence to real shooting stars. They travel at millions of miles per hour, so fast that they can escape from galaxies.
Physicists know a lot about the most fundamental properties of the universe, but they certainly don’t know everything. 2021 was a big year for physics – what was learned and what’s coming next?
Such a mission could be developed soon, allowing astrophysicists to take selfies of the solar system and use the Sun’s gravity as a lens to peer deep into space.
Gravity is something every person on Earth intuitively understands: It is what keeps you on the ground. But how come gravity pulls down, rather than pushes up? Einstein came up with the answer.
The reason bigger objects in space are round and smaller ones aren’t boils down to gravity. And it’s the same reason mountains on Earth can only grow to a certain height
The English astronomer and navigator Thomas Harriot died in 1621, leaving behind 8,000 pages of notes containing a trove of unpublished scientific discoveries.
Gravitational waves reveal the demise of super-dense neutron stars spiralling into their black hole companions - the first time such strange and exotic star systems have ever been observed.
Going to the bathroom is much more complicated in space without any gravity. To solve this problem of tricky orbital potty breaks, NASA builds special toilets that work without gravity.
If you are a sci-fi junkie you’ve probably wondered what would happen if you were unlucky enough to fall into a black hole. How well you’d fare all depends on the type of black hole.