A possible explanation for the lightness of neutrinos could help answer some big questions about the universe. Mass is a fundamental property of matter, but there’s still a lot about it we don’t ...

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will be named for an influential astronomer who left the field better than she found it. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a flagship astronomy and astrophysics ...

For decades scientists have tried to find a way to measure the mass of the lightest matter particle known to exist. Three new approaches now have a chance to succeed. In 1980, Hamish Robertson was a ...

The fundamental particle of light is both ordinary and full of surprises. What physicists refer to as photons, other people might just call light. As quanta of light, photons are the smallest possible ...

Scientists are using a detector originally designed to study neutrinos to pin down an elusive nuclear physics measurement. In Greek mythology, the Olympic gods punished the demigod Tantalus by ...

Perplexed by gravity? Don’t let it get you down. Gravity: we barely ever think about it, at least until we slip on ice or stumble on the stairs. To many ancient thinkers, gravity wasn’t even a ...

In the 1900s, Albert Einstein unified the concepts of space and time, giving us a useful new way to picture the universe. At the start of the 20th century, physicists had a problem: The speed of light ...

The 2013 documentary Particle Fever follows physicists from the start-up of the LHC through the discovery of the Higgs boson. Where are those physicists now? Physicist Monica Dunford remembers when ...

As we step into the quantum age, here are four things to know about quantum networks. Four years, four months, and twelve days ago, a photon—a particle of light—left Proxima Centauri, the closest star ...

For the first time, scientists and policy-makers are creating a regional strategy for scientific projects in Latin America, starting with a focus on high-energy physics and cosmology. Earlier this ...

Over time, particle physics and astrophysics and computing have built upon one another’s successes. That coevolution continues today. In the mid-twentieth century, particle physicists were peering ...

Matter and antimatter behave differently. Scientists hope that investigating how might someday explain why we exist. One of the great puzzles for scientists is why there is more matter than antimatter ...