X. Li

An elastic drop falling onto a surface that repels water like a lotus leaf doesn't spread but stretches out a tail, like a pulled rubber band. Then the tail contracts, a bulb forms at the tip, and the entire drop bounces off. Inertia and gravity control the stretching, while elasticity keeps the liq

A clear signal from the merger of two black holes, each about 33 solar masses, confirmed Hawking's theorem: the final horizon area turned out larger than the sum of the initial ones. This strengthens the link between black hole area and entropy.

The probe has measured the magnetic field at the Sun's poles for the first time. Previously, a flat view from Earth's orbit hindered observations. Now, climbing higher, it has shown that the north and south poles behave differently. This will help understand solar cycles.

If neutron stars had tiny bumps, they would constantly hum with gravitational waves. Using LIGO, scientists searched for that hum from 34 pulsars, the largest search of its kind. No signals were found, which pushes the theoretical limits even lower. The Crab pulsar, for instance, turns less than 0.0

The updated GWTC-5.0 catalog includes 161 recent gravitational-wave bursts from black hole collisions. Thanks to improved detector sensitivity, some signals are now record-breakingly clear, allowing for more precise measurements of black hole masses and stricter tests of relativity. The total number