Science Visualized

  1. Planetary Science

    The 43-year history of journeys to Jupiter, in one graph

    With the arrival of Juno, nine spacecraft will have flown past or orbited Jupiter over the last 43 years.

    By Christopher Crockett
  2. Earth

    A third of the population can’t see the Milky Way at night

    Light pollution conceals the Milky Way’s star-spangled core from more than a third of Earth’s population, a global atlas of artificial sky luminance reveals.

    By Thomas Sumner
  3. Materials Science

    Butterfly-inspired nanostructures can sort light

    Scientists re-created a nanostructure found on butterflies that can separate out circularly polarized light, a characteristic that may be useful for telecommunications.

    By Emily Conover
  4. Oceans

    Here’s where 17,000 ocean research buoys ended up

    A combined look at 35 years’ worth of ocean buoy movements reveals the currents that feed into ocean garbage patches.