Everything exists in the vast, dark place we call space. But what is it? If we sucked all of the matter out of the universe, would space itself be left behind? That’s a question philosophers have pondered for the last 300 years. Modern physics explains how we should think of “spacetime” and how objects move through it. But philosophers argue that these ideas are compatible with several different notions of what space actually is – be it an actual, physical entity, a relation between things or a concept to help us make sense of the world.

The fact that there’s no consensus on what space actually is doesn’t mean we can’t measure it. This week scientists reported the extraordinary observation of gravitational waves from a violent collision of ultra-dense stars more than 100m light years away that shook the very fabric of space itself. And there’s also been progress on understanding the mysterious, invisible part of space that scientists have dubbed “dark matter”. It turns out that the new method to weigh galaxy clusters can help shine a light on this mysterious phenomenon.

Other great stories we’ve had this week include how dogs are trying to communicate with facial expressions, how culture is informing technological innovations in Japan and a new discovery which could lead to slowing down the progression of Parkinson’s.

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