In cetaceans—unlike in other mammals—breathing is a voluntary action that involves returning regularly to the surface. Sperm whales take naps in vertical position, and when dolphins sleep, half of their brain stays awake. How exactly are they able to do this?
Opinion
09.20.2017
Although it was named a mere twenty years ago, the last common ancestor of all living organisms on Earth is more than three billion years old. And scientists have an ever-better idea of what it may have looked like.
Opinion
09.15.2017
In the 20 years since it left Earth for Saturn, the Cassini-Huygens mission has made remarkable discoveries, to the point of changing our entire understanding of the Solar System. Its spectacular end will come on September 15, 2017: the space probe will dive...
Article
09.12.2017
Our topics
07.03.2017
Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment in quantum mechanics, points to the possibility of parallel universes. Physicist Aurélien Barrau believes that one day, it will be possible to devise...
Article
06.09.2017
Cheaper than satellites, stratospheric balloons can carry telescopes up to altitudes of 40,000 meters, enabling researchers to observe the Universe. They recently completed a mission over Australia...
Video
03.29.2017
Sofia is a Boeing 747 like no other. Run by NASA and the DLR, the German space agency, this aircraft was specially modified to accommodate a telescope. Come on board with astrophysicist Olivier...
Article
02.22.2017
Seven Earth-sized planets have been detected orbiting Trappist-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star in our galactic neighborhood. Some of them appear to be potentially habitable. The latest results of this...
Article
11.03.2016
Keenly awaited by the astronomy community, the ALMA interferometer observatory is expected to attain full capacity in 2018. Meanwhile, this exceptional instrument is already doing great science.
Article
09.27.2016
Astrophysicist and comet specialist Anny-Chantal Levasseur-Regourd has been involved in the Rosetta project since its early stages. She shares her insight on this extraordinary space mission which is...
Article
09.13.2016
The Gaia mission team unveiled its catalogue of celestial bodies in our galaxy in September 2016. This colossal inventory charts the positions and luminosities of over 1 billion objects in the Milky...
Infographics
08.12.2016
Twenty years ago, in October 1995, a team of astrophysicists led by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz at the Haute-Provence Observatory in southeastern France became the first to formally discover an...
Article
07.04.2016
The aura of mystery surrounding Mars has long been intensified by its curious pair of moons: Phobos and Deimos, whose origins have remained clouded until now.
Article
06.27.2016
More than 20 years after Galileo, it is now Juno's turn to observe the largest planet of our Solar System. This close encounter will go beyond the simple observation of its moons to gather...
06.15.2016
Less than four months after the first-ever detection of gravitational waves, a new merger of black holes has been observed by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration.
06.10.2016
A few months after the first detection of gravitational waves, the success of the Lisa Pathfinder mission paves the way for an ambitious space project that will make it possible to observe the...