It is an indisputable fact that the Earth hurtles around our Sun at 30 kilometres per second, but it sure seems to speed up during the summer. School is out, friends and family gather for bonfires and barbecues… time flies when you’re having fun.

Of course, the cosmos ticks along at its usual pace regardless of season, and the science of decoding the universe never truly takes a holiday, either.

As students and teachers in the Northern hemisphere prepare to head back to school, the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics decided to take a look at some of the biggest physics stories of the summer — and provide some handy primers to help you brush up on what you may have missed while you were dozing in a hammock.

As part of its suite of educational resources for classrooms, Perimeter Institute has created lessons and activities to help students and teachers delve into the universe’s gravitational dynamos, black holes.

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