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Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of “Ask a Spaceman“ and “Space Radio,” and author of “Your Place in the Universe” (Prometheus Books, 2018). Sutter contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. There aren’t a lot of guarantees in life, and there are even fewer in space. Everything is moving; … Read more
The Sun is blanketed by spiking, ultra-hot jets of plasma created from electrically charged particles, and now scientists have figured out more about how these jets (or spicules) are created and driven up into the star’s atmosphere. Via a series of laboratory experiments and models, a new study describes the spicules as being like … Read more
In the last decades of his life, Albert Einstein hoped to unite his description of gravity with existing models of electromagnetism under a single master theory. It’s a quest that continues to vex theoretical physicists to this day. Two of our best models of reality – Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the laws of … Read more
In responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the politicians who control the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, are trying to strike a delicate balance. In a special session, the CERN Council, which is composed of representatives from the laboratory’s 23 member nations, voted to suspend the “observer” privileges of the Russian Federation, CERN announced today. … Read more
A new class of immunotherapy drugs – used to treat arthritis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease – might also work for those with severe asthma. The pharmaceuticals are known as ‘jakinibs‘ because they inhibit the protein JAK1. This protein plays an essential role in the body’s immune response by activating cytokines, which can then lead … Read more
A data visualization of particle collisions at the LHC at CERN. (Image credit: CERN) Scientists are gearing up to once more push the boundaries of the cutting edge of particle physics with the reopening of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland after a three-year shutdown. After its successful second run ended … Read more
In both her undergraduate education at a historically Black university and as a graduate student in a diverse engineering program, Ebony Omotola McGee always had Black people like herself to look to. That changed when she got a job at Hewlett-Packard. Suddenly, there were few Black people around her, and she felt isolated and “miserable.” … Read more
On March 4, 2022, a lonely, spent rocket booster will smack into the surface of the Moon at nearly 6,000 mph. Once the dust has settled, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will move into position to get an up-close view of the smoldering crater and hopefully shed some light on the mysterious physics of planetary impacts. … Read more
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 375, Issue 6584. This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States have had outsize success in launching … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Physicist Mary James was a sophomore at Hampshire College in Massachusetts in 1974 when a professor encouraged her to apply for a prestigious internship at a world-class laboratory. … Read more