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Using this method, the probe could potentially reach the star system in decades. Proxima centauri, captured by Hubble. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA A team of physicists has outlined a possible way of sending probes deep into interstellar space within a reasonable timescale, using relativistic electron beams. Space is that annoying combination of "really cool" and "really big". We can see really awesome stuff going on out there, but unless we come up with ways to significantly improve our propulsion methods, we aren't going to be taking a look at them any time soon. Traveling at the speed of Voyager,...

Time travelers, if they exist amongst us, have yet to betray their period-hopping ways online, according to a fun, new study aimed at finding visitors from another time, based on their digital footprints. Theoretically, the idea of time travel forward in time should be possible according to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In fact, scientists have already sent teensy particles called muons forward in time. But sending a large object, such as an entire person, into the future remains in the echelons of science fiction, for now. Even so, over a summer poker game, Robert Nemiroff, an astrophysicist at Michigan...

Age of the Universeby Dr. Gerald Schroeder According to a possible reading of ancient commentators' description of God and nature, the world may be simultaneously young and old. One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the age at about 15 billion years.Let...