When Was Pompeii Destroyed? The Date Debate
Pliny's letter says Vesuvius erupted on 24th August AD 79. Autumn fruit, a disputed coin and a charcoal inscription dated 17th October suggest otherwise. Which should we trust, a much-copied letter or the archaeology?
The History of Runes: Ancient Script to Modern Oracle
From an ancient Germanic alphabet to a modern tool of divination, discover the history of runes and how an Austrian occultist and an American writer helped transform their meaning and mystical significance today.
Let the stars choose your next read
Tell the Oracle what era is calling you — the past, the present, or what's coming — and it will find the right article from the celestial record.
Plutarch and the Oracle of Delphi: A Priest's Account
Plutarch served as a priest at the Temple of Apollo for thirty years, and wrote two dialogues on how the Oracle actually worked. Here's what he claimed caused the Pythia's trance, and why even he wasn't fully certain.
O'Neill's Cylinder: Could This Space Colony Work?
Gerard O'Neill's giant rotating space colony took four years to get published. NASA studied it in 1975 and chose the Stanford Torus instead. Fifty years on, Bezos and Musk are having the same argument all over again.
The Privatisation of Space: What This Means for NASA
NASA still funds nearly everything in American spaceflight, from Boeing to SpaceX. But for crew transport to orbit, it no longer owns the hardware or the risk. Here's what that actually means, and what it doesn't.
The Great Filter Hypothesis: Why the Universe Is So Quiet
The Great Filter hypothesis argues one step to becoming a galaxy-spanning civilisation is so hard that almost nothing survives it. Two stages stand out as strong candidates, but even that verdict may not fully hold up.
What Is Kessler Syndrome? The Space Debris Problem
Kessler Syndrome is the theory that orbital debris could reach a density where one collision sets off a chain reaction of more collisions. Kessler predicted it in 1978, and some readings say we've crossed that threshold.
Could We Build a Space Elevator? The Material Problem
A space elevator would carry cargo to orbit on a cable instead of a rocket. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky sketched the idea in 1895, Arthur C. Clarke popularised it in 1979. The physics works. The material doesn't exist yet.
The Multiverse Theory and Parallel Universes Explained
Is our universe one of many? The word 'multiverse' began in 1895 meaning something else entirely, before physics adopted it for three different theories. We ask what each claims and whether any qualify as science.
Why Was NASA Created? The Sputnik Panic
Sputnik humiliated America in 1957. Eisenhower's answer was to build a civilian space agency, not a military one, growing it out of an obscure 1915 aeronautics committee whose structure still shapes NASA policy today.
Breakthrough Starshot: Is Its Interstellar Probe Still Alive
Backed by Stephen Hawking and $100 million, Breakthrough Starshot promised a probe at Alpha Centauri within a lifetime. Discover what it actually built, where the money went, and why nobody agrees what happens next.
Vera Rubin Observatory's Hunt for Interstellar Objects
Only three interstellar objects have ever been confirmed passing through the solar system. The Vera Rubin Observatory, built to catch the next one, already had 2025's 3I/ATLAS in its data ten days early, and missed it.
Voyager 1 & 2: The Journey to Interstellar Space
Launched in 1977 carrying a golden record, Voyager 1 and 2 are the only confirmed spacecraft in interstellar space. Nearly 50 years on, both are still sending data back, running on power that can never be refilled.
Robert Goddard's 1918 Proposal for Interstellar Travel
In January 1918, physicist Robert Goddard privately proposed a generation ship powered by intra-atomic energy, or a slower alternative using suspended animation. Fearing ridicule, he sealed the essay away for decades.
Could AI Really Help Humans Go Interstellar?
Could AI help humans go interstellar? On a stasis ship it would be a guardian, tending an unconscious crew for centuries. On a generation ship, something closer to an authority, breeding committee, or even a god.
What Is a Solar Flare? The Science Explained
A solar flare is a burst of radiation from the sun's magnetic field snapping and reconnecting. NASA and NOAA grade them A to X, each letter ten times stronger. The strongest, in 2003, overwhelmed the sensor measuring it.
Dyson Spheres: The Real Science Behind the Sci-Fi
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure built to harvest a star's total energy output. In July 2026, JWST ruled out two of the seven Project Hephaistos candidates. The remaining five have not been confirmed.
Is There Life on K2-18b? The Biosignature Debate
In 2025, astronomers found a possible biosignature gas on K2-18b, calling it the strongest evidence yet for alien life. Five independent teams have since re-examined the same data and failed to reproduce the signal.
Could Alcubierre Warp Drive Achieve Interstellar Travel?
A subluminal warp bubble no longer needs exotic matter, new physics shows, but it still needs a rocket to move. The real shortcut, true faster-than-light travel, is still exactly where Alcubierre left it in 1994.
Could Suspended Animation Achieve Interstellar Travel?
Torpor could shrink a Mars mission by half, but nothing proves it works past months, let alone years. Vitrification could last centuries, but nobody has revived a whole mammal. Neither gets a crew to another star yet.
Would a Generation Ship Achieve Interstellar Travel?
A generation ship only works if the people who board it are never the people who arrive. Chrysalis, a real 2025 design, would take about 400 years to reach Proxima b, assuming anyone on board survives the trip.
Could We Actually Mine Asteroids for a Profit?
Elon Musk became space's first trillionaire in 2026. Could asteroid mining make someone else that rich? A private company has already tried and failed twice. The bigger obstacle may be economics, not engineering.
Is Interstellar Travel Possible? The Physics Verdict
Voyager 1 would need 73,000 years to reach the nearest star. From light sails to warp drives, here is what physics allows, what near-future engineering can actually foresee, and why the first travellers won't be human.
Could We Terraform Mars? The Real Science
Terraforming Mars was declared impossible in 2018 when scientists found too little CO2 to thicken its atmosphere. New research suggests warming it is now a genuine engineering question. The catch is what comes next.
How Many Satellites Does Starlink Have? The Full Story
Starlink now has more than 10,700 satellites in orbit, over half of everything active in Earth orbit. From 60 satellites in 2019 to the largest constellation in history, and SpaceX's only profitable business line.
Why Do Astronomers Hate Starlink and Its Rivals?
Astronomers first spotted the problem in 2019, when early Starlink satellites left bright streaks across telescope images. SpaceX promised a fix, but 10,000 satellites later, astronomers say it still hasn't gone away.
Inside the Raptor Engine: The Physics Behind Starship
Discover how the SpaceX Raptor engine works, why it burns methane instead of kerosene, why full-flow staged combustion had never flown before Starship, and what makes it the most efficient rocket engine ever built.
Can SpaceX's Starship Reach Mars, or Just the Moon?
Discover why Musk just delayed SpaceX's Mars mission by years, which Starship version will actually attempt it, why the target shifted to the Moon first, and the real engineering and human cost nobody's pricing in.
How SpaceX Beat NASA's Established Contractors
Discover how the bankrupt contractor Rocketplane Kistler nearly took SpaceX's NASA contract after a 2004 protest, why cost-plus deals kept failing and how the COTS programme's milestone funding changed spaceflight.