The light echo around the star V838 Monocerotis as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in November 2005. When I was a teenager, I was—shockingly, I know—deeply nerdy. At a science-fiction convention, I ...

You know that scene in the film Contact where the “Machine” is spooling up, its three spinning rings kicking out crazy light and an electromagnetic field powerful enough to pitch nearby Navy ...

Perovskite films release light in mere picoseconds thanks to ordered nanodomains. This discovery transforms materials once for solar power into quantum-grade light sources.

Halide perovskites—already a focus of major research into efficient, low-cost solar cells—have been shown to handle light ...

If there is an absolute law in the universe, it’s that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. For science-fiction enthusiasts, that’s a bit depressing. Space is big, and while the speed of ...

When I was a teenager, I was—shockingly, I know—deeply nerdy. At a science-fiction convention, I bought a button that read, “186,282 miles/second: Not just a good idea, it’s the law.” It was poking ...