Expert Voices Paul Sutter

All you need is some string.

Hair may record the information swallowed by the gravitational monsters.

Some patience will be needed.

Astronomers recently spotted perhaps the strangest white dwarf yet: a dead star the spins twice a second, sucking down material from a nearby companion as it goes.

Sure, space looks pretty, but just because it sparkles doesn't make it welcoming.

Life on Earth can seem pretty hazardous, but if you ask astrophysicist Paul Sutter, it's still safer than anywhere else in the universe.

What would a universe flooded with primordial black holes look like?

We all know and love the speed of light, but why does it have the value that it does? Why isn't it some other number? And why did it become such a cornerstone of physics?

How would you make a hypernova?

We don't really know where about half of the universe's "normal" matter is hiding out.

A few scant equations can explain a variety of phenomena in our universe, over vast gulfs of space and time. Here's a taste of just how powerful modern physics can be.

There's a reason — actually, several — why Sir Isaac Newton is often considered the No. 1 scientist of all time.

Otherwise, they'd be ferociously unstable.

For the past few years, the possibility of a new (and big!) planet hanging around in the far outer solar system has tantalized scientists and the public alike. Is "Planet Nine" out there or not?

Physicists are figuring out how close you can get to a black hole before you are unlikely to escape. That threshold is called the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO).

After 60 years, this beautiful theory hasn't produced many tangible results.

Magnetars — highly magnetized, rapidly rotating super-dense stars — are among the most enigmatic creatures to inhabit the cosmos and their origins are shrouded in mystery.

Is space-time ultimately smooth at the tiniest of scales, or something else? It seems impossible to measure, but researchers are beginning to look down. Deep down.

Although simulations suggest that black holes should grow quickly in the early universe, when astronomers look back in time they simply cannot find many such structures.