![](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/BF0421B4-4F32-458E-8B14D639DE657062_agenda.gif?w=275&h=154&fit=crop)
Here’s What Oppenheimer Gets Right—And Wrong—About Nuclear History
Here’s what a historian who has studied J. Robert Oppenheimer for two decades has to say about the new Christopher Nolan film on the father of the atomic bomb.
Lee Billings is a senior editor for space and physics at Scientific American. Credit: Nick Higgins
Here’s what a historian who has studied J. Robert Oppenheimer for two decades has to say about the new Christopher Nolan film on the father of the atomic bomb.
Researchers, using the galaxy as a detector, believe they have detected gravitational waves from monster black holes for the first time.
New work suggests four distinct star system types—and finds our own in the rarest category
The James Webb Space Telescope is giving us our first glimpse of stars in the early universe.
Some of the most violent cosmic collisions occur silently in the vacuum of space, but with the right instrumental ears, we can still hear it happen. Here’s how.
Two SciAm editors duke it out to see if wormholes and multiverses could in fact exist.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) and Europa Clipper missions will search for signs of habitability on three of Jupiter’s potentially ocean-bearing moons.
Our first known interstellar visitor is now long gone, but new research has some ideas about why it moved the way it did while it was in our cosmic neighborhood.
In the inaugural episode of Cosmos, Quickly, we blast off with Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno of the Space Force, who is charged with protecting our space in space, particularly from Russia and China...
We slammed a $330-million spaceship the size of a dairy cow into an asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Here’s what we’re learning about how our first step in planetary defense could save us in the future...
Quantum telepathy, laser-based time crystals, a glow from empty space and an “unreal” universe—these are the most awesome (and awfully hard to understand) results from the subatomic realm we encountered in 2022...
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work using entangled photons to test the quantum foundations of reality
Remembering Frank Drake, who led science in listening for an extraterrestrial “whisper we can’t quite hear”
Long considered trivial, the effects of rocket launches and reentering space debris on global warming and ozone loss could soon become too large to ignore
Breathtaking pictures that include the deepest-ever infrared view of ancient galaxies offer a preview of the spectacular science in store for the most powerful space observatory in history...
Decades of work, $10 billion in spending and nearly 14 billion years of cosmic history have brought us to this moment: the first science from the largest and most powerful observatory ever built...
Jane Rigby, Webb’s operations project scientist, discusses how NASA plans to wring as much science as possible from the $10-billion observatory
Check out the weird and wonderful stories that delighted us this year
One study suggests the Curiosity rover’s landing site is not as it seems
A major report outlining the highest priorities and recommendations for U.S. astronomy has finally been released, revealing the shape of things to come
Support science journalism.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Knowledge awaits.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.
Create Account