Assuming you were still alive flying into a black hole, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center visualized what the views might look like. In this visualization of a flight toward a supermassive black hole, labels highlight many of the fascinating features produced by the effects of general relativity along the way. Produced on a NASA supercomputer,...

There are a lot of tools to visualize data. Some are visualization-specific. Some are tools that let you make charts but are focused on other data things. New apps come out with new features that promise new things. This can make it tricky to find the best visualization tool. Also, the “best” depends on what you want to visualize and how you want to...

To capture solar energy for use in the evening, batteries have grown in popularity over the last few years, especially in California. For the New York Times, Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich show the shift with a pair of stacked area charts. Five years ago, these pair of charts would have been a single animated one. Tags: batteries, electricity, New...

When you analyze data, there are times when a trend, pattern, or outlier jumps out and smacks you in the face. Or, you might calculate results that seem surprising. Maybe they’re real, but maybe not. Make sure know which before you go shouting your insights from the rooftop. Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.

Imagine that you try to do something and there’s a 20% chance of success. If you try to do the thing six times, what is the probability that you succeed at least once? Read More

Based on data from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), Villanova University researchers developed a map of the magnetic fields in the Milky Way. For Strange Maps, Frank Jacobs: The colors show the interaction between warmer dust clouds (pink), cooler ones (blue), and magnetic fields, indicated by radio filaments (yellow)...