We live in the age of stars
Astronomers Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin divided the life of the universe into five eras. The second is the Stelliferous Era, the age of stars. It began a few hundred million years after the Big Bang and will last about a hundred trillion years. We are 13.8 billion years in.
Measured that way, the universe is very young, and so is our understanding of it. Most of what we know about dark energy, exoplanets and gravitational waves was learned in the last thirty years. Much of it is changing right now.
What this site is for
The Orbital Record is a reference hub for that science: a record of what we have learned about the universe and how we learned it. It collects the landmark papers that built modern astronomy and explains each one plainly, follows the discoveries that matter today, and shows where research is heading.
- The research library: the canon of astronomy, paper by paper.
- News that always links to the primary source.
- Research Pulse: data on where scientists are concentrating.
- Deep Time and Slingshot, for the feeling behind the numbers.
How we work
Everything links to its source. Numbers are checked before they are published. We run no ads and no tracking pixels. Read the details in sources and method.
