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The Universe
The Universe covers space, astronomy and physics for general readers: how discoveries are made, how confident scientists are, and what is still unknown.
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Every announcement of a discovery is really a statement about how unlikely the result would be if nothing were there. Understanding that one idea is the difference between reading science news and being sold it.
A planet crossing its star dims the light by a fraction of a percent, on a schedule. What that method can measure, what it cannot, and why it favours big planets close in.
The same observation can be described three ways depending on how much checking has happened. A short guide to the vocabulary, so a headline cannot oversell a result to you.
Radio images are reconstructed from interference patterns, not photographed. Understanding that changes how you read the colourful images that accompany the announcements.
Light pollution takes the faint objects but leaves plenty. What is genuinely visible without a telescope from an Australian city, and how the view shifts through the year.
The evidence is a mismatch between how much mass we can see and how fast things move. What would count as solving it, and what the honest alternatives still are.
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What a confidence level actually tells you about a new resultOn our listMore storiesWhy most new planets are found by watching a star flickerThe difference between a detection, a candidate and a claimWhat a radio telescope actually records, and why it is not a pictureHow to read the southern night sky from a suburban backyardWhy dark matter is a measurement problem before it is a particleHow a spacecraft changes course without burning much fuelThe Long ExposureHow this masthead worksWhat we cover