Why the blaze star is keeping us waiting

In the 17th century, the great maritime nations were vying to solve a puzzle that had confounded philosophers for many centuries: how to determine exact positions on the Earth’s surface. And in Britai

Astronomers love a challenge. They place their observatories on the highest mountains, in the driest deserts, on the coldest ice shelves, beneath the deepest oceans, in orbit around Earth and the Sun,

From strange lights in the sky to rocks that spontaneously glide across the ground, the mysteries scientists are trying to finally crack

34 / REVELATORY PLAYWRIGHT BY LYNN NOTTAGE I live for those incomparable moments when you encounter the work of an artist who opens a door to reveal a fresh perspective on the world. This transformati

A year in the life of the eighteenth-century naturalist

What is normal or ‘ordinary’ matter? When astronomers talk about normal matter, we’re referring to baryons. By that, we just mean ‘the stuff of atoms’ – things like protons and neutrons. How did we fi