Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in February 2004, this image is part of a sequence showing the celestial progression of a light echo. Swirling interstellar dust is illuminated by a spherical ...

A flash of light hits a simple iron crystal. In the space of a trillionth of a second, its magnetic behavior shifts, as if the solid briefly becomes something else. You might feel a jolt of hope ...

Researchers in Konstanz discovered a way to manipulate materials with light by exciting magnon pairs, reshaping their magnetic “fingerprint.” This allows non-thermal control of magnetic states and ...

When a laser experiment fails to produce the expected flash of light, most researchers would assume something went wrong with the hardware. In this case, the missing signal turned out to be the most ...

Scientists have found a way to see ultrafast molecular interactions inside liquids using an extreme laser technique once thought impossible for fluids. When they mixed nearly identical chemicals, one ...

Just as the sun slips behind the Chilean Andes, it seemed to send up a tiny emerald flare. The photograph, taken from Cerro Pachón in Chile by NOIRLab Audiovisual Ambassador Petr Horálek, captures a ...

It's hard enough to see a meteorite strike on Earth: Most of the bits of space debris that survive entry into the atmosphere plunge into the ocean, which covers about 70 percent of the planet. The ...