Cosmos (subtitled The Science of Everything) is a science magazine published in Adelaide, South Australia, by the Royal Institution of Australia that covers science globally. It appears four times a year in print as Cosmos Magazine, and the online edition is updated daily with news as well as long features and multi-media content, and includes the print magazine content. Cosmos Weekly is a subscription-based weekly online edition published on Fridays, and a podcast was launched in April 2022.

The magazine was established in Sydney in November 2004^{[citation needed]} by the Sydney magazine publishing executive Kylie Ahern and science journalist Wilson da Silva.^[1] with the first issue published in July 2005.^[2]

In June 2006, the magazine launched a daily Internet news and features service.^[3]

The magazine was the originator of Hello from Earth, a web-based initiative to send messages from the public, each just 160 characters in length, to Gliese 581d, the (then) nearest Earth-like planet outside the Solar System. Created as a science communication exercise for 2009 National Science Week in Australia, it collected nearly 26,000 messages that were beamed by NASA's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex on 28 August 2009.^{[citation needed]}

In June 2013 the company, then owned by Luna Media, moved to Melbourne following its acquisition in February 2013 by Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, and his wife Elizabeth Finkel, a science journalist, who became editor-in-chief. The Finkels were already part-owners, and acquired the remainder from Ahern and Da Silva, who remained on the editorial staff.^[4]

On 1 September 2018, custodianship of the magazine was transferred to Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus), a not-for-profit science media organisation based in Adelaide.^[5][1] In April 2021 Cosmos Weekly was launched, and exactly a year later, a podcast on the LiSTNR app, featuring science explainers, was launched.^[6]

Writers whose work have featured include Margaret Wertheim, Jared Diamond, Tim Flannery, Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, Michio Kaku, Susan Greenfield, Steven Pinker, Paul Davies, Simon Singh and Oliver Sacks.^[7]

Cosmos' subtitle^[7] and byline is "The Science of Everything". The quarterly print magazine, Cosmos Magazine, is a science magazine published in Adelaide by RiAus, covering international developments in science. The online edition is updated daily with news as well as long features and multi-media content. Cosmos Weekly is a subscription-based weekly online edition published on Fridays.^[8]

In the 12 months to March 2022, the print readership of Cosmos had increased 115.1% on the previous year, lifting it to 114,000.^[9]

Ian Connellan is editor-in-chief of RiAus, while Gail MacCallum is managing editor of Cosmos Magazine.^[6][10]

Cosmos Magazine won 48 journalism and industry awards under Da Silva's editorship,^[7] including Magazine of the Year at the Bell Awards for Publishing Excellence in 2009^[11][12] and 2006, and Editor of the Year in 2006 and 2005.^[7]

It won a Reuters/World Conservation Union Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting, an Earth Journalism Award and the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.^{[citation needed]}