When I was a teenager, I was—shockingly, I know—deeply nerdy. At a science-fiction convention, I bought a button that read, “186,282 miles/second: Not just a good idea, it’s the law.” It was poking ...

"Astronomers have been studying the heavens for thousands of years, but until recently much of the cosmos has been invisible to the human eye. Launched in 2003, the Spitzer Space Telescope has brought ...