View an infographic of the Standard Model

Explore all the particles that make up the Standard Model

This interactive organizes all the particles of matter and force in the Standard Model alongside the Higgs boson. Clicking on any particle will display a brief description and several properties, such as discovery year, mass, and charge.

The Standard Model reveals an underlying organization to the universe

Using the framework of quantum field theory, it structures all known particles into 12 matter particles, alongside five particles that carry three of the four fundamental forces. Although remarkably precise and predictive, it cannot yet explain gravity, dark matter, or dark energy.

View a breakdown of the mathematics behind the Standard Model

The Lagrangian version of the theory—related to the system's energy—presents a vast mathematical equation, with different components representing various force interactions and types of particles, including ghost particles to cancel out mathematical redundancies.

View a timeline of particle discoveries through the Higgs boson in 2012

With few exceptions, the elementary particles that make up the Standard Model were theorized or predicted to exist before their eventual discovery in high-energy environments. These predictions were often the result of inferences drawn from already accepted mathematical models.

Explore an interactive map of the unified theories of everything

This interactive concisely describes many highly complex theories ranging from quantum gravity and black holes to dark matter and energy. Supplementary resources, key questions, and possible solutions accompany each description. As of 2026, no developed theory provides an accepted explanation of all observed phenomena in the universe at all scales.

View the evolution of atomic models, with four successively overturned between 1900 and 1926

Originally thought to be indivisible spheres unique to each element, the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson revealed them to be made of smaller particles. Ernest Rutherford's gold foil experiment uncovered the existence of nuclei, which Niels Bohr suggested were surrounded by electrons in fixed orbits. By applying quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrödinger replaced orbits with probability clouds.

The deceptively simple proton

Take a visual deep-dive into the proton, a near-fundamental—but deceivingly simple—building block of nature. Among other beguiling characteristics, the particle can't be described by its constituent particles (quarks), but rather exists in a...

Italian physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) on the Standard Model

"If I could remember the name of all these particles, I'd be a botanist."

View a simulation of the dark matter filaments that make up the cosmic web

The distribution of matter in the universe is not uniform, with interconnected threads of galaxy clusters surrounded by voids of empty space. Simulations of the universe show this is only possible within 13.8 billion years—the universe's age—if a foundational network of seeds—dark matter halos—were present to gravitationally attract visible matter.

Virtual particles are bookkeeping tools used to describe force interactions

Physicists mathematically describe the electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear forces as the result of these particles being exchanged between particles of matter. Despite not being real, observable particles, this method has provided experimental predictions with an accuracy of over 12 decimal places.

Measurements of an electron’s magnetic moment help test the Standard Model

A particle’s magnetic moment quantifies how it responds to the presence of an external magnetic field. An electron’s value can be measured down to 14 decimal places, with certainties in the first 12 allowing it to be used to assess the accuracy of predictive models.

Explore a simulation of ideal gas behavior, which can be explained by kinetic molecular theory

The theory describes particles as moving in random directions, with a distribution of velocities determined by the gas's temperature. The particles collide elastically like billiard balls, are negligibly small, and do not exert forces on one another. The gas laws can be derived from these principles using statistics or observed via this interactive.

Models of the strong nuclear force resemble the RGB color system

Quarks are described as having “color charge” and must combine to produce color-neutral particles (e.g., red + anti-red = white). An isolated quark, which would create a colored particle, is impossible because the energy to overcome strong force particles—gluons—is enough to generate more quarks to maintain color neutrality.

View 3D renderings of atomic orbitals created with quantum mechanics

Scientists use the Schrödinger equation to determine how a system governed by a wavefunction—an equation that predicts the probability of certain outcomes—evolves with time. Computers can animate atomic structure and behavior by depicting the wavefunction as a fluid that guides a particle, like water moving a speck of dust.

Light has been modeled as a wave and a stream of particles throughout history

Isaac Newton first identified white light as composed of a spectrum of colors, which he believed consisted of particles of different hues. Various light phenomena, including refraction, led Christiaan Huygens to develop an alternative wave model. Quantum mechanics validated both models through the concept of wave-particle duality.

Explore a visualization of curved spacetime under general relativity

While depictions involving bends in elastic fabrics are common to illustrate gravity, they are circular representations that rely on gravity in the real world to depict gravity in the model. The river model instead shows how bends in spacetime convert speed through time into speed through space, producing acceleration.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

View a colorful gallery of solar features curated by the National Solar Observatory

Many of the images are captured at different nonvisible wavelengths, such as UV, and then colorized into the visible range to illuminate the sun's magnetic field and magnetism-driven solar activity, including coronal loops and filamentary prominences. Close-up imaging also reveals solar granules—Texas-sized cells of material that bubble to the surface from the convection zone.

Visualize the components of fireworks

This article provides animated diagrams depicting how different parts of fireworks function. The elements work together through timed mechanisms to produce desired effects.

Visualize a model of all of time, where our lives span less than the width of a human hair

The massive model was built across a Mojave Desert lake bed using 800 lights spaced just 10 meters apart. Within the model, the entirety of human civilization appears only in the final centimeter.

A "no math" primer on quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics may not immediately grasped, but it can be slowly understood through the experiments and discussions offered here by writer Dr. Miguel F. Morales. A professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, Dr. Morales makes understanding the basics of quantum mechanics fun with a promised "no math" approach.

Visualizing the 75 largest underwater animals

With so many fish in the sea, which are the largest? This infographic shows fantastic illustrations of the 75 largest sea animals, ranked by average size. The detailed visual is organized in descending order of size, starting with the blue whale,...

The history of the periodic table and how it hinted at atoms possessing internal structure

In 1869, more than two decades before the discovery of electrons, Russian chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev organized known elements by atomic weight and chemical properties using index cards. His organization revealed previously undiscovered elements and identified patterns in the reactivity of elements, which would later be linked to each element's outermost electron shell. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

A gallery of medical illustrations from NIH

The National Institutes of Health provides educational materials for broad use. The institute hosts a Flickr account with many different image galleries, including this one (with over 70 images to date) that illustrate and annotate curious phenomena, from the life cycles of a malaria parasite to the comparison of male and female bladders. Explore the gallery here.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Visualizing the history of money

Money is any medium of exchange used in payments for goods or services and can take many forms. From cattle and shells in ancient times to paper and blockchain today, money has taken many shapes and sizes. This infographic illustrates some of the major forms of exchange world cultures have used over the last 5,000 years.

Explore a 3D model of the influenza virus

This interactive 3D model reveals the influenza virus’s structure—its outer coat and spike proteins—and compares it with other well-known viruses, offering a clear view of how flu differs from pathogens like HIV or coronaviruses.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.