There you are, standing behind eyepiece looking through at Saturn’s rings. What you see is blurry. And dark. Did you get the telescope wrong? Is … Read More

The gray disk floating in space looks like a marbled ball; when you point a little telescope at the moon it appears smooth. Sure, you … Read More

It’s not empty space between you and the stars. It’s thick. It swirls around and distorts what you see. It blurs and bends colors depending … Read More

At some point, you probably read the spec sheet on a solar panel and saw a big number in watts. It could be a six … Read More

On a sunny day, you may think: “oh, there’s plenty of energy falling on my roof.” But that’s not true. The sun doesn’t radiate equally … Read More

But constant acceleration is straightforward right? Just throw some numbers at it, apply physics of constant acceleration, and you are finished. Right? Wrong. Planning a … Read More

Astronauts come home after traveling almost as fast as light; they is still young, while their grandchildren have grown old. It’s magical-sounding sci-fi stuff. But … Read More

As things approach speed of light, they do two things: They get really, really heavy, and they experience a warped universe called the Lorentz factor. … Read More

First of all, if you’ve heard anything about this topic, you’re likely aware that nothing can travel faster then light. Light speed is the cosmic … Read More

imagine that there’s a train travelling at normal speeds. Imagine that when it’s stationary its carriages is as long as we’d expect them to be. … Read More