For decades Pluto was simply a faint dot on a photographic plate. In less than a century we have turned a faint point of light into a beautiful reddish world.
Heart of the Matter
Einstein’s last paper of 1905 gave us his most famous equation, and led us to a true understanding of the stars.
Lunchtime Doubly So
How Einstein used the invariant speed of light to overturn a view of space and time that had stood for centuries.
Bit by Bit
Einstein’s solution of the photoelectric effect was to propose that light is made of photons. His work ushered in the age of quantum theory.
Shake, Rattle and Roll
Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion gave atoms an experimental footing, and brought together Newtonian mechanics with chemistry and thermodynamics.
From Heaven to Earth
Determining your position on Earth used to be an astronomical problem, and the discovery of Jupiter’s moons made that task much easier.
Yuri’s Night
In 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to space. Since then “Yuri’s night” has inspired dreams of even grander human space missions.
Lunar Calendar
The calculation of Easter has its roots in astronomy and the cycles of the Moon and seasons.
After the Fact
In 1948 Ralph Alpher, and Robert Herman published a paper predicting a consequence of the big bang model, which we now call the cosmic microwave background.