Space & the universe
Rocket launches, new telescopes, old light. The universe and our attempts to understand it.
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In the 1930s, astronomer Fritz Zwicky measured galaxies moving too fast to hold together and concluded most of the universe was invisible. His idea was ignored for forty years until Vera Rubin's spinning galaxies forced everyone to take dark matter seriously. This is the story of a correct idea that arrived decades too early.
In 1977 an Ohio radio telescope caught a 72-second burst so strong that astronomer Jerry Ehman circled it on a printout and scrawled 'Wow!' in the margin. This is the story of that single sheet of paper, the decades of failed attempts to hear it again, and why one unrepeatable signal still haunts the search for life.
How Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin’s 1925 discovery of what stars are made of was dismissed as impossible by the elite.
Discover how a 17th-century astronomer used a celestial clockwork to solve a mystery that stumped Galileo and Descartes.
Companies and nations are preparing to extract water and metals from the Moon and asteroids, but the treaties governing space were written for a different era. Examine the unresolved law of who can claim and profit from what's out there.
Tens of thousands of satellites are now reshaping global internet access, military communications, and the night sky. Explore the technology, the astronomy it disrupts, and the geopolitics of who controls the orbits closest to Earth.
For decades, rockets were thrown away after a single flight. Trace the engineering and economics of landing and reflying boosters, and how it upended the launch industry and who can afford orbit.
After decades away, the US, China, and a wave of private companies are racing to return to the Moon. Unpack what's actually at stake — water ice, strategic position, prestige — and how this race differs from the last.
The universe and our attempts to understand it. The stream follows the new Moon race and the fight over low-Earth orbit, how reusable rockets collapsed the cost of reaching space, and the deep questions underneath: the Fermi paradox, dark matter and the 95% of the cosmos we can't see, neutron stars at the edge of collapse. Launches and telescopes as they happen, old light explained whenever you're ready.
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