Stories by Seth Fletcher

The first image of the behemoth at the center of our galaxy opens new avenues for understanding the nature of black holes

It took hundreds of researchers and many telescopes to capture an image of the black hole at the middle of our Milky Way.

It took hundreds of researchers and many telescopes to capture an image of the black hole at the middle of our Milky Way.

The historic image of Sagittarius A* is the culmination of a decades-long astronomical quest—and a crucial step toward a new understanding of black holes, gravity and spacetime

Searching for reality in unreal times

Scientific American's chief features editor Seth Fletcher talks about his book Einstein's Shadow, an account of the long effort to image a black hole that recently came to fruition.

After more than a decade of effort, a global network of radio telescopes revealed the first-ever picture of an enigmatic hole in spacetime

The Event Horizon Telescope’s historic quest to image the “shadow” of a supermassive black hole is off to an auspicious start

If we survive the election, naturally 

The astrophysicist and author talks about her new book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

Scientific American editors Mark Fischetti, Dina Maron and Seth Fletcher talk about the info they picked up at the just-concluded annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. Subjects covered include gravitational waves, whether there's really a war on science, the growing concern over Zika virus, sea level rise and advances in artificial intelligence.
 

It could mark the birth of a new kind of astronomy

The Harvard physicist explains the collaboration's long-awaited research on the black-hole information paradox

Conductive polymer mesh could be a boon to brain research

The first theory proposed to explain the universe's strangest galaxies has had impressive staying power

During a historic European heat wave, 36 Nobel laureates signed a declaration on climate change—and tried to shout down the science-denying claims of one of their own

Nobelist Harold Varmus on the promise of a new generation of cancer treatments—and the big challenges that remain

Controversy aside, work on NASA’s next deep-space rocket continues unabated

The technologies chip makers hope can keep Moore’s Law alive

Imagine a trio of aerobatic aircraft. Over the years they've gotten very good at their routine. But they want to add another five or six or seven members.

The writer–director of Ex Machina talks robot consciousness, mass surveillance and trying to wrap his head around the multiverse