Animation of Black Hole Disk Flare in OJ 287

Solved: Astronomers Identify Origin of Mysterious Flares in Galaxy OJ 287

In a distant galaxy, a cosmic dance between two supermassive black holes emits periodic flashes of light.
Velcro tape on black background

Versatile Velcro™

Velcro is used in many spaces, from spacecraft to shoes. A relatively recent invention, it was inspired by the close observation of nature.
Credits: Frank Summers (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Science by: Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (RIT), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin)

NASA’s Deepest 3D Fly-through of the Universe

From the present day all the way to less than 400 million years after the Big Bang, we're seeing how the Universe grew up like never before.
A sanitary-commission nurse and her patients at Fredericksburg, May 1864

The Post-Civil War Opioid Crisis

Many servicemen became addicted to opioids prescribed during the war. Society viewed their dependency as a lack of manliness.
Leukerbad, Switzerland

Madness on the Wind

The eerie effects of the Foehn—folklore or fact?
Martian Moon Deimos

Deimos: A Chip Off the Old Martian Block?

A new space probe suggests that the moonlet Deimos isn’t a captured asteroid after all.
Leonardo da Vinci

The Destructive Myth of the Universal Genius

Excusing bad behavior from actors viewed as exceptional has led to supremely destructive moments in history. How'd we get from da Vinci to Hitler?
Annie Edson Taylor, 1902

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.
Albert Einstein, 1921

In Search of Einstein’s Brain

After Albert Einstein’s death in 1955, a pathologist—searching for the secret of genius—removed, dissected, and ultimately stole the mathematician’s brain.
People outside the entrance to Luna Park on Coney Island, New York

Luna Park and the Amusement Park Boom

The fortunes of Coney Island have waxed and waned, but in the early twentieth century, its amusement parks became a major American export.