About r/askscience
In its own words:
Ask a science question, get a science answer.
The community was created on Sep 5, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 19, 2026, it has gained 3,912 subscribers (+0.02%). Among the 6 communities on our science list it is number 3 by size. It sits just behind r/videos (#19) and ahead of r/nottheonion (#21) in our ranking.
What sets r/askscience apart
r/askscience is far more text-driven than most big subreddits: 100% of its recent posts are text posts, against a median of 17% across the Top 100. r/askscience is more of a browsing community than a debating one: 3.5 comments per post on average, well under the Top 100 median of 16.2. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (10:00 UTC) sees about 37.0× as many posts as the quietest (06:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026, r/askscience grew from 26,367,067 to 26,381,450 subscribers (+14.4K, +0.05%). That is about 360 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (8 so far), so it gets longer every week.
Top posts on r/askscience this week
What the community upvoted most over the last seven days, as ranked by Reddit (collected Oct 29, 2026).
- With lab grown meat becoming more popular would it be possible to lab grow yourself and make steaks out of your lab grown self?u/dilanbrady · Oct 27 · text post
- Are there any examples of an invasive species that was soon wiped out because a predator (i clouding humans) found them to be delicious?u/JohnSith · Oct 26 · text post
- What fluid dynamic or thermodynamic mechanisms cause exhaled human breath to feel cool through pursed lips but warm through an open mouth?u/Sbaakhir · Oct 27 · text post
- In deep waters how do animals resist huge pressures with soft bodies when even unmanned submarines need rigid metal shells?u/GregLittlefield · Oct 29 · text post
- AskScience AMA Series: We're big cat experts and filmmakers who discovered never-before-seen tiger behavior in Nepal. Ask us anything!u/AskScienceModerator · Oct 28 · text post
- What is the science behind sandbars?u/Exciting-Cheesecake9 · Oct 27 · text post
- Why are some things unicellur and some are multicelluar?u/Admirable_Cheek_5816 · Oct 28 · text post
- Do we haved proof that only living things are made out of cells?u/Admirable_Cheek_5816 · Oct 28 · text post
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/askscience, from 2015 to 2023, ranked by Reddit.
- Help us fight for net neutrality!u/MockDeath · Nov 22, 2017 · 83,139 points · 1,248 comments · text post
- Stephen Hawking megathreadu/AskScienceModerator · Mar 14, 2018 · 65,577 points · 1,724 comments · text post
- Black Lives Matteru/AskScienceModerator · Jun 2, 2020 · text post
- AskScience’s concerns regarding Reddit’s API changesu/AskScienceModerator · Jun 12, 2023 · 40,807 points · 1 comments · text post
- A message to our usersu/MockDeath · Jul 3, 2015 · 5,612 points · 1,235 comments · text post
- Why is it that during winter it's not uncommon to have days with abnormally high temperature and summer-like weather, but in the summer it never drops to winter-like weather for a day?u/This31415926535 · Feb 20, 2018 · 37,287 points · 1,005 comments · text post
- If we could travel at 99.9% the speed of light, it would take 4 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Would the people on the spaceship feel like they were stuck on board for 4 years or would it feel short…u/GPL89 · Jan 20, 2019 · 33,971 points · 3,106 comments · text post
- Do giraffes get struck by lightning more often than other animals?Mar 29, 2017 · 31,843 points · 959 comments · text post
- What % of my weight am I actually lifting when doing a push-up?u/Standby4Rant · Oct 26, 2017 · 32,022 points · 1,659 comments · text post
- What is the point of using screws with a Phillips head, flathead, allen, hex, etc. instead of just having one universal screw type?May 27, 2017 · 30,971 points · 1,715 comments · text post
What r/askscience talks about
Across 670 recent posts (Oct 21–Oct 28), the words that come up most are “code”, “help30”, “genlabs”, “quality” and “choose”. Other frequent themes are save, fuel, prices, stack, power and physique. Recurring phrases include “code help30”, “help30 save”, “help30 avail” and “calm mind”. By format, 100% are text posts.
Popular post flairs: Earth Sciences (481), Physics (49), Biology (39), Human Body (25), Astronomy (15), Neuroscience (15).
Activity and best time to post
r/askscience gets about 190 new posts a day. The public archive holds 1,899,568 posts and 6,698,923 comments in total, about 3.5 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Thursday (225 posts) and the quietest was Wednesday (159). Posting peaks around 10:00 UTC and is lowest around 06:00 UTC.
Rules of r/askscience
The moderators of r/askscience list 8 rules. In short:
- Medical advice
- Offensive or abusive language
- Homework question
- Meme, joke, or just link
- Top-level comment not answering the question
- Nonreputable answer
- Simple calculation or easily Googleable
- No bots, no AI generated answers
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/askscience and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How big is r/askscience?
r/askscience has 26,381,450 subscribers (Oct 29, 2026), which makes it the #20 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 14,383 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026.
How old is r/askscience?
r/askscience was created on Sep 5, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from Apr 2, 2010.
How active is r/askscience?
Very active: r/askscience gets about 190 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 1,899,568 posts and 6,698,923 comments. In a sample of 670 recent posts we counted 288 different authors.
When is r/askscience most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 21, 2026 to Oct 27, 2026, the busiest day was Thursday and the quietest Wednesday, and most posts arrive around 10:00 UTC, with the fewest around 06:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/askscience about?
The community describes itself as: “Ask a science question, get a science answer.” Recent post titles often mention code, help30, genlabs, quality and choose. Most posts are text posts (100%).
Is r/askscience safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/askscience as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/askscience?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/askscience accepts text posts only, with galleries enabled. It has 8 posted rules, starting with: “Medical advice”; “Offensive or abusive language”; “Homework question”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/askscience?
Communities with similar topics include r/AskReddit (60M), r/creepy (14.8M), r/psychology (4.9M), r/AskEconomics (1.5M) and r/science (34.6M).
Stats from public data (data updated Oct 29, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Oct 29, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/askscience.