The question of how black holes grow should be an easy one to answer: they absorb material from their surroundings. But despite their fearsome reputation, supermassive black holes don’t rampage throug

There’s a worrying problem with the ‘Higgs field’ — the energy field that gives particles their mass. It seems to be dangerously close to having an inherent instability. In the absence of particles, t

It’s a cold, clear February evening on Brighton beach. The sun has not yet dipped below the horizon and the last of the light is that strange, luminescent blue that presages dusk. Hundreds of pairs of

The year 2025 has been a vintage one for astronomy. In January, we were hooked on reports of a building-sized asteroid on course to collide with Earth. The risk was quickly downgraded from worrying to

How many planets are there in the Solar System? It sounds like an easy question, but it’s more complex than you might think – and actually it’s one we still can’t answer. With scientists finding evide

As an astronomer, I collect stars. There are several hundred billion of them in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, so it’s important to find a way to categorise them. While others might rank their stars by co