dark matter
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Cosmology Demystified
That has got to be the single strangest post title I’ve ever written. Of all the whacky branches of science out there, cosmology almost takes the cake — second only, I think, to the downright trippy world of quantum mechanics.…
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Globular Clusters: The Untold Story
Meet Messier 13: my sentimental favorite globular cluster. For more than a decade now, one of my favorite things has been to set up my telescopes at astronomy outreach events and show people the night sky. I have two telescopes…
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Dark Matter: What We Don’t Know
Okay, I know…weird way to start a post, right? Isn’t this blog supposed to teach science? How can we teach something we don’t know? This is actually one of the most important concepts in the realm of astrophysics, and even…
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Dark Matter: How Do We Know?
In theoretical physics, there are countless theories as to what dark matter is. But how do we know it’s not a wild goose chase? Technically speaking, we don’t. But fortunately for us, this question comes back to one of the…
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A Cosmological Timeline
We started covering cosmology way back in April. And since then, we’ve explored quite a bit — in fact, the grandest story the universe has to offer. We’ve followed the universe from the first fractions of a second after the…
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Dark Matter: What We Know
I considered titling this post “Dark Matter Demystified” and including it in my “Cosmos Demystified” series…but honestly, there are some promises I can’t make! Dark matter is one of the most mysterious concepts in cosmology, second only to the even…
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Cosmology: How Do We Know?
Have you ever wondered how the heck astronomers think we know anything about cosmology? It’s a truly mind-blowing field of study, full of whacky concepts like the shape of empty space, the expansion of the universe, and dark energy. More…
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The Proof in the Afterglow
In 1915, Einstein published his theory of general relativity. This theory predicts that, since gravity works by bending space-time, it also determines the shape of space — and the shape of the universe as a whole. In 1929, Edwin Hubble…
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The Big Bang Theory, Revised
Imagine a time before stars and galaxies existed, before free-floating subatomic particles combined to form the first atoms, before the synthesis of the first atomic nuclei… Wait a second — this sounds familiar! Way back in May, we rewound the…
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Why do Galaxies Exist?
When we look out into the sky, we see a universe filled with galaxies. Galaxies are the second-largest “structure” we’ve covered in depth on this blog. The largest so far have been galaxy clusters, which are just what the name…
