A light, cheap space telescope design would make it possible to put many individual units in space at once.
Katie Yung, Daniel Apai /University of Arizona and AllThingsSpace /SketchFab
Space telescopes are limited in size due to the difficulties and cost of getting into orbit. By revamping an old optical technology, researchers are working on a lightweight and thin telescope design.
In an update of one of the most famous experiments in physics, scientists have used ‘slits in time’ to explore the properties of light and ultrafast optical materials.
The sky looks blue on a sunny day – but at night we can see the faint glow of its true colour.
Electronic devices are not, in and of themselves, a source of visual problems. Using these devices inappropriately can interfere with the natural development of the eye, as well as reading and learning skills.
Shutterstock
The impact of using electronic devices is critical during the first years of life, both visually and on the cognitive and social development of the child.
TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star 40 light-years from Earth and may have water and clouds, as depicted in this artist’s impression.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons
Life on Earth has dramatically changed the chemistry of the planet. Astronomers will measure light that bounces off distant planets to look for similar clues that they host life.
Reconstruction of the execution of the Arnolfini portrait. Top: Postures of the painter during the painting process. Bottom: views obtained from the four lenses.
Université de Lorraine
Researchers have long tried to unravel the puzzle of Jan van Eyck’s use of perspective in his masterpiece, the Arnolfini Portrait. New research suggests he may have had help from a novel machine.
The English astronomer and navigator Thomas Harriot died in 1621, leaving behind 8,000 pages of notes containing a trove of unpublished scientific discoveries.
For 60 years, physicists thought they knew exactly how coherent a laser could get. Now the ultimate quantum limit to laser coherence has been found, and it’s much much bigger than anybody thought.
The electromagnetic spectrum we can access with current technologies is completely occupied. This means experts have to think of creative ways to meet our rocketing demands for data.
NASA Johnson/Flickr
Free space optical communication will allow the same connectivity in space we already have on Earth. And this will provide benefits across a number of sectors.
Anish Kapoor made “Cloud Gate”, a giant bean-shaped mirror in Chicago. Visitors play with the light in the city and its surroundings, where our future lays.
In 1954, three scientists observed a paradox to which they gave their name: the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence. Now, fibre optics are on the way to finally providing an explanation.
Edwin Land, on the left, invented and commercialized a number of technologies, most of which centered on light.
AP Photo
Whether at a family gathering or in a research lab, getting access to images immediately was a game-changer. And Land’s innovations went far beyond the instant photo.
Could there be a future with smaller, less bulky VR headsets?
Jean-Marc Giboux/AP Images for Siemens
Male Birds of Paradise have patches of super-black plumage that absorb 99.95 percent of light. New research identified their feathers’ microscopic structures that make them look so very dark.
The laws of physics dictate that to pick out ever fainter objects from space and see them more sharply, we’re going to need a bigger telescope. And that means we need massive mirrors.
A new invisibility cloak can hide objects using an ultrathin layer of nanoantennas that reflect off light. Are humans next?
Courtesy of Xiang Zhang group, Berkeley Lab/UC Berkeley
Research into invisibility cloaks has been flourishing over the past decade yet they have still not reached the market. But that may be about to change.