As far as odd couples go, this is one for the record books. The ripples in spacetime stirred up by two distant, merging black holes suggest that one of the pair was much bigger than the other. It’s the first definitively mismatched black hole pair spotted by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, which search for […] More
Archaeologists can learn a lot about ancient people by analysing their faeces, but only if they can be sure the remains weren’t left by a dog. Now AI can help More
The brightest supernova ever seen may be the first known example of a rare type of stellar explosion. The supernova, spotted in 2016 in a galaxy about 4.6 billion light-years away, radiated about 5 sexdecillion (5 followed by 51 zeros) ergs of energy. That’s about twice the amount of radiation emitted by the previous record-holder, […] More
The sharpest images yet taken of the sun’s atmosphere reveal superfine threads of hot plasma draped across small regions that have appeared rather bland until now. Finding these slender strands is essential for understanding how energy moves around in the sun’s atmosphere, says Amy Winebarger, a solar physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in […] More
The first sign that Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity was correct has made a repeat appearance, this time near a supermassive black hole. In 1915, Einstein realized that his newly formulated general theory of relativity explained a weird quirk in the orbit of Mercury. Now, that same effect has been found in a star’s orbit […] More
You don’t need eggs to make meringues, pancakes and a host of other baked goods. If you know the science behind it, there are ingredients such as aquafaba that can do the same job More
In Altered Carbon’s version of the future, our identities are stored in chips and can be switched between bodies. The first series was a hoot. The second, however, is a bit too earnest, says Emily Wilson More
N. K. Jemisin’s latest book sees New York itself come alive to fight off aliens in the first part of a new trilogy with ethnicity at its heart More
