Wired: Lisa Grossman has written an extensive article on the uncertain future of the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin—the self-proclaimed “birthplace of modern astronomy.”
Administered by the University of Chicago, the 113-year-old observatory once claimed one of the best astronomical libraries in the country, the world’s largest refracting telescope, and all the university’s astronomy faculty and graduate students, including the Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Now, however, most of the faculty and the books from the library have migrated to the university campus. Grossman took a tour of the observatory to see it as it is today and find out what is going to happen to it.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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