science

Prior to this year, humankind didn't have a good idea of what Pluto looked like. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is working to change that. It has been steadily flying toward the dwarf planet over the past many months, and on July 14th, during a flyby, we'll be seeing the first-ever clear photos of Pluto.

On July 7th, New Horizons snapped the above photo of Pluto from 5 million miles away, giving us the clearest view yet of what Pluto looks like. Back in April, we shared a previous closest-ever view that showed Pluto as a blurry dot, as seen from 71 million miles away.

Celebrities now have another reason to shy away from paparazzi photographers. Scientists have created a new technique for creating controllable digital versions of celebrities using only a set of paparazzi photos to reconstruct faces and create convincing expressions.

One piece of advice you’ve probably heard regarding printed photos is to never leave them in direct sunlight, which …

Popular YouTube personality Michael Stevens of VSauce posted this interesting 12-minute video yesterday explaining the optical science behind the "Moon Terminator Illusion" and the "Dolly Zoom Effect" (AKA the Hitchcock zoom).

Now here's a neat use of Canon's lenses: the University of Toronto owns one of the smallest professional astronomical telescopes in the world that uses an array of photographic camera lenses instead of a single lens. Called the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, it uses ten ordinary Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS II lenses that cost $9,999 each. That's $100,000 in photo gear.

Want to understand the math and science behind how JPEG files store your digital photographs? The YouTube channel Computerphile has a new series of videos on the JPEG. They're a bit long and heady, but you may find them interesting if you've ever wondered about the technical details behind one of the world's most popular image compression methods.

Did you know that back in 2010, scientists managed to calculate the orbit of a comet using amateur photographs found on the Internet? It worked with a high degree of accuracy, and it was a brilliant idea for using crowdsourced photos in an unconventional way.

This NASA photo roughly shows what a sunset on Mars would look like to our eyes if we were standing there to witness it. The agency released this true color image after earlier sharing a black-and-white version that was captured by the Curiosity rover in the middle of April 2015.

Scientists around the world create massive and elaborate facilities for carrying out groundbreaking research. Photographer Enrico Sacchetti is a guy who specializes in capturing them on camera. He's a "science, technology, and industrial" photographer based out of Rome and London, and his images have appeared in many of the world's top science and technology magazines.

NASA's MESSENGER mission came to an end yesterday after the space probe slammed into Mercury's surface at about 8,750 mph. The photo above is the last photo that was sent back to scientists on Earth before impact.

Here's an interesting fact: thousands of photos were still on the MESSENGER when it was destroyed -- images that we will never get a chance to lay eyes on.

Did you know that when you capture a natural light photo, it took those photons about 8.3 minutes to …

An Ontario-based vegan who goes by the name Vegetable Police recently released the video above and then began warning photographers with it in online photo forums. He claims that modern digital cameras "output high levels of radiation" and that people should be careful not to have the camera in their hands or against their faces for long periods of time.

Scientists have created a self-powered camera that can take pictures indefinitely without any external power. Instead, it generates its own power using the light it captures with the sensor.

Tired of waiting hours for your camera battery to recharge? A newly developed aluminum battery could one day replace lithium-ion batteries and allow you to charge from empty to full in a matter of minutes.

The Internet is teeming with photographs and videos of the starry night sky that dazzle the eyes and tickle the imagination, but have you ever wondered how the imagery compares to what photographer's naked eye actually saw while the camera was taking a picture?

Photographer inefekt69 recently decided to answer that question by creating the photos above. On the left is what the human eye could see in the dark, outdoor field, and on the right is the photo he shared online.

If you're a photographer who often shoots in very dark environments, would you want night vision eyedrops to help you see better without artificial illumination? It sounds like science fiction, but we're actually getting closer to having it be possible as an item for camera bags.

A team of "biohackers" have announced that they've figured out how to enhance human night vision by dripping a chemical onto eyeballs.

Tired of having eyeballs with fixed focal lengths? Scientists have developed new telescopic contact lenses and glasses that can give your eyes 2.8x zoom with a simple wink of the eye.

The low light performance in your future camera may be improved thanks to new research in "nano earthquakes." Researchers have found that sound waves can be used to improve the electronic properties of 2D materials, paving the way for things such as camera sensors that can capture better shots in dark environments.

Did you know that some creatures can actually see the world in long exposures? Scientists recently discovered that cockroaches are the latest insect found to have that feature built into their eyes and brains. It allows the resilient little bugs to see in near-pitch black environments.

A camera used on satellites to monitor vegetation from space may soon help save lives in the battle against cancer. The special camera will be capable of peering into human skin to see things that are invisible to the naked eye for the purpose of detecting diseases early.

Astronomers have captured the first photo of a single supernova showing up in four different places of a single image due to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. The "lens" in this case was a massive galaxy that is capable of using its gravity to bend and magnify light.

Could machines be trained to tell the difference between a beautiful portrait photo and a not-so-pleasing one? Beauty is pretty subjective, but scientists are trying to boil down the common properties of beautiful digital portrait photos so that a computer can be trained to spot them. Along the way, they're revealing interesting new things about what people look for in portraits.

This is a picture of the smallest life form that's known to exist, an ultra-small bacterial cell. That black bar you see is for scale -- it indicates 100 nanometers. To put things into perspective, more than 150,000 of these bacteria could fit onto the top of a human hair.

One of the strange properties of light is that it behaves as both a wave and a particle. Experiments over the years have confirmed both aspects, but none have succeeded in directly observing both natures at exactly the same time... until now.

Scientists in Switzerland have successfully captured the world's first photograph showing light behaving simultaneously as both a particle and as a wave. In the image above, the top "slice" shows light behaving as a wave, while the particles can be seen in the slice below.

Explorer Sam Cossman recently employed the help of multiple drones to capture photos and footage of the Marum Crater in an active volcano on the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. He ended up losing multiple drones in the process, but he left the island with spectacular images that will help provide a better understanding of the volcano and the life that exists around it.

A team of researchers at Harvard are trying to revolutionize the world of optical lenses. Instead of traditional curved lenses that suffer from various optical flaws, they are working on a completely flat and ultra-thin lens that overcomes age-old problems and pushes optical quality to the limits of the laws of nature.

Scientific photographer Neil Bromhall of Right Plants 4 Me created this time-lapse showing the birth of an oak tree. It reveals how an acorn turns into an oak seedling over the course of 8 months from September through April.

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) recently conducted a study that compares public perception of professional photographs versus amateur ones. The main conclusion was that, yes, people can tell the difference between the two, and that professional photographs are generally more memorable than their counterparts.

Taking artistic photographs is one of the sexiest forms of creativity -- at least that's what scientists are reporting. The activity ranked 7th on a list of most desirable qualities in a partner according to a new research paper that was published recently.

Photographer Attila Bicskos was diving off the coast of the Philippines last year when he spotted a thresher shark swimming by and snapped a photo. He almost tossed the photo away afterward, but it's a good thing he didn't: the photo is now the first recorded image showing a thresher shark giving birth.

The world's largest camera is now one step closer to becoming a reality. The 3.2-gigapixel camera being built for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) in Chile has secured the funding it needs to ensure it will go into operation according to schedule.

The image above may seem like some kind of artist rendering, but it's an actual true color photograph showing Saturn, its rings, and one of its moons. Click here for a full-resolution version of the photo.

Men who share selfies online are more likely to exhibit psychopathic tendencies. That's what researchers are saying after conducting a lengthy study on the link between selfie-taking and certain personality traits.

Astronaut and photographer Chris Hadfield recently paid a visit to the …

Camera shake could one day be used to help track down people who record footage anonymously. Researchers say that footage captured by wearable cameras contain a "motion signature" that's unique to the wearer -- a hidden "fingerprint" of sorts.

What would the night sky look like if the closest spiral galaxy to us were as bright as the moon and visible in its entirety to the naked eye? The photo above offers a pretty accurate look (Click the image for a larger version).

Created by Tom Buckley-Houston, the composite image shows the Andromeda galaxy's actual size in the night sky with a huge boost in brightness.

From images of graphene flowers and foam to a portrait of a self-taught engineer fixing one of his elephant pumps that is providing clean water for a village in Malawi, the winning images and other impressive entrants in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering's photography competition beautifully illustrate how art, science, and humanity mesh.

If you've never thought to find out why aperture works the way it does, you should definitely check out this simple explanation of optics, aperture and pinholes by MinutePhysics.

James Tyrwhitt-Drake recently combined over 17,000 images captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and Helioviewer.org to create a time-lapse showing the largest sun spot of the past two solar cycles -- that's roughly 22 years!

Trying to record and gather data on very shy animals like emperor penguins is a big challenge for scientists. Getting close to them, even with remote-controlled rover cameras, often scares them or makes them act differently.

So, how do you solve this? If you're Yvon Le Maho and his team from the University of Strasbourg in France, you dress the rover up as a fuzzy penguin chick before sending it on its way.