tutorial

The sun is a violent place. Intense heat is flying off the surface in every direction and spreading out through space, warming our solar system. Nuclear reactions taking place deep within the core create energy of unimaginable proportions. And amidst all that, solar flares are blazing to life in...

Stars are extraordinarily beautiful. Our star, the Sun, gives light and life. Other stars, the ones that are far away, inspire our imagination. Yes, they’re lovely indeed...until they turn on their surroundings. When stars go supernova, the destruction is magnificent. What does that mean...

What good sci-fi movie doesn’t involve time travel of some sort? It’s an intriguing concept, and one that fascinates humans, enough so that we’ve even come up with “time travel rules”, just in case. But is this all just fantasy? Or could we actually figure out the science behind time travel one...

Every single night, without fail, the stars come out in all their glory. Sadly, most of us never get to see the full wonder of this beautiful display. There’s so much more to see than most of us in towns and cities are privy to. If you want to finally witness with your own eyes everything the...

With every mission, we venture further into the unknown. Whether we’re sending a man to the moon or a probe to Mars, we are seeking answers and expanding our knowledge. The end goal? Not just knowledge, but possibility. What if we could send humans out? What would it take to embark on a...

The universe that we call home is pretty amazing. It’s filled with incredible celestial objects and mind-blowing physics phenomenon. We tiny humans on our tiny rock floating through this vast emptiness make up a fraction of a fraction of a miniscule amount of all that’s out there. But what...

There are some wild things out in the universe that push the limits of physics as we know it. One such phenomenon is the neutron star. Neutron stars are extremely small, especially considering the scale of other objects in the universe. They typically have a radius of about 18 miles, and they...

Scientists had a devil of a time detecting many particles we know of and take for granted today. We always prevailed, however. Now, there’s one particle in particular that has proven to be even more of a challenge. Every minute of every day, the Sun is sending out waves of neutrinos. These...

One term that comes up quite often in discussions on astrophysics is dark matter. The name conjures images of mysterious substances and sci-fi mayhem, but the reality is far from that. In fact, we know so little about dark matter that almost anything (within reason, of course) is possible. If...

Nature has done a pretty good job of making the Earth a habitable place. If it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. Or perhaps you would be, but you wouldn’t be a human and you wouldn’t be on Earth. The point is, we know what it takes to make a planet habitable simple because we’re...

The aurora borealis. The northern lights. Nature’s light show. All of these names and descriptions paint a beautiful picture that barely comes close to the reality of the sight. Thousands flock to the north every year to search for this dazzling display that’s caused by...what, exactly? What is...

As far as we can tell, humans aren’t meant to live in space. We’re built for the cozy conditions of Earth where all our basic needs (food, shelter, water, oxygen) are met. But humans don’t really care what we’re “meant” to do, do we? We choose to live in harsh conditions, extreme locations, and...

Everything we know about the world rests on the back of a scientific theory. These theories are tested, retested, and debated rigorously before they’re accepted into the scientific “book of knowledge.” Since these theories aim to answer our most pressing questions, it’s easy to get distracted by...

How many of us long to see space, and not just in photos or documentaries? Wouldn’t it be incredible to explore places no human has seen before and look back on Earth from a perspective known to so few? The dream of many is to become an astronaut, but the process isn’t quite as straightforward...

We can thank our atmosphere for quite a lot, particularly our ability to, well, survive. Earth’s atmosphere keeps us from freezing (or boiling), it provides the air we breathe, it stops (some) space debris from clobbering our planet, and it filters out harmful radiation from the Sun. Without the...

Water is our most precious resource. It shaped the way we evolved, and it shaped the way human civilization formed and functioned. For Earth’s life forms, everything rests on the shoulders of water. So, naturally, in our search for life on other planets, the first thing we look for is water...

Some phenomena on Earth is so breathtakingly beautiful and fascinating, it shakes up our whole being. Those who have witnessed the northern lights know this feeling. Also called the Aurora Borealis, the northern lights offer us a glimpse of the magic happening in the magnetosphere as solar winds...

Kids are insatiably curious, but that’s certainly not a bad thing, especially considering how much we know about the world. Today’s youngsters are in a perfect position to ask important questions, because thanks to the global spread of information, the answers aren’t hard to come by. If your...

Venus has often been described as Earth’s twin, but really it’s the evil twin. With surface temperatures reaching over 800 degrees Fahrenheit and sulfuric acid rain, it’s not really an ideal world for...well, anything. But was Venus always like this? Or did it have a much more mild past that...

It was a startling day in science when researchers first came to the conclusion that not only are we located in a galaxy, but there are other galaxies out there. Just thinking about this fact is both exhilarating and a little bit frightening. Our nearest neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is...