The spook and the weirdness, they stand in for non-locality and contextuality, they replace correlations and entanglement, pure and mixed states, non-commutativity, error correction, path integrals or post-selection. Unfortunately, all too often the technical vocabulary is entirely absent rather than briefly introduced. This makes it very difficult for interested readers to dig deeper into the topic. (Credit: C. Reed, S. Hossensfelder)

This computer simulation shows a collision of two streams of interstellar gas, leading to gravitational collapse of the gas and the formation of a star cluster at the center. In this image, the gas streams were labeled with blue and red “tracer dyes,” and the purple color indicates thorough mixing of the two gas streams during the collapse. (Credit: Y. Feng and M. Krumholz)

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have been able to change the properties of quartz glass into metal for very brief moments using laser pulses.  (Credit: Vienna University of Technology)

Interfaces between solid materials are surfaces with intricate, internal structure (shown on the left). To control that structure, and to use it for specific applications, researchers model it a simplified way (shown on the right). (Credit: Niaz Abdolrahim and Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT)

(29075) 1950 DA is a near-Earth asteroid. Among asteroids more than 1 km in diameter, it is notable for having the highest known probability of impacting Earth. (Credit: Stocktrek Images Inc./Alamy)

The Fermilab Holometer is a new kind of instrument designed to study the quantum character of space itself. It measures the quantum coherence of location with unprecedented precision. (Credit: Fermi)