Michael D. Lemonick is a freelance writer, as well as former chief opinion editor at Scientific American and a former senior science writer at Time. His most recent book is The Perpetual Now: A Story of Amnesia, Memory and Love (Doubleday, 2017). Lemonick also teaches science journalism at Princeton University.
Witness the Solar Eclipse without Frying Your Eyes or Your Camera
America is preparing for a sea-to-shining-sea solar eclipse. Here’s how you can watch the spectacular display, and maybe even snap a photo to commemorate the event, without burning your retinas or damaging your camera’s optics.
How to Weigh a Star Using Gravitational Lensing
Astronomers recently tapped Einstein's concept of gravitational lensing to determine the weight of a distant star. Watch and learn how this concept came to be and how it works.
Interstellar Projectiles Zoom around Us at Blistering Speeds
Hypervelocity stars, and the black holes that launch them, whip through space at millions of miles per hour.
The 10 Weirdest Things in the Solar System
Pierogi moons, rubber duckie comets and spewing ice balls: We have some very strange neighbors among the myriad planets, moons and objects that circle our sun.
A Tasty Trove of Exoplanets at TRAPPIST-1
A baker’s half-dozen of Earth-size worlds is orbiting a (relatively) nearby star—and some could be habitable
Planet Formation out of Black Hole Belches
New studies suggest lonely planets flying through intergalactic space were formed by star-destroying supermassive black holes.
Is It Time to Give Up on Dark Matter?
There is still good reason to think undiscovered fundamental particles act as gravitational glue for galaxies.
The Year in Planetary Science
Take a light-speed trip through the solar system to catch up on 2016’s biggest stories from our celestial neighborhood.
Produced with support from Explore Scientific
Alien Transit Systems May Be a Giveaway in the Search for ET
A Harvard professor devises a scheme to detect extraterrestrials by tracking how they might commute from one world to the next
Book Review: Life at the Speed of Light
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
Book Review: Five Billion Years of Solitude
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
7 Radical Energy Solutions
The failure rate may be 90 percent, but if any of these exotic technologies succeeds, it could significantly improve energy security and efficiency