Carolyn Collins Petersen
What’s the Best Way to Pack for Space?
Packing to go to space is a lot like getting ready for a plane ride with only a carry-on bag.…
Curiosity Rover is Climbing Through Dramatic Striped Terrain on Mars
Just about every day we here on Earth get a breathtaking picture of Mars's terrain sent back by a rover.…
Planets in Binary Star Systems Could be Nice and Habitable
The Star Wars world Tatooine is one of the most recognizable planets in the realm of science fiction. It's a…
A Planetary Disk in the Orion Nebula is Destroying and Replenishing Oceans of Water Every Month
Planet-forming disks are places of chaotic activity. Not only do planetesimals slam together to form larger worlds, but it now…
A Star Passed Through the Oort Cloud Less Than 500,000 Years Ago. It Wasn’t the Only One.
As stars in the Milky Way move through space, some of them have an unexpected effect on the Solar System.…
A New, More Accurate Measurement for the Clumpiness of the Universe
Cosmologists are wrestling with an interesting question: how much clumpiness does the Universe have? There are competing but not compatible…
Even Stars Like the Sun Can Unleash Savage Flares in Their Youth
Why would a young Sun-like star suddenly belch out a hugely bright flare? That's what astronomers at Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical…
Black Holes Existed at the Dawn of Time, Birthing Stars and Encouraging Galaxy Formation
The Universe is full of galaxies, many containing supermassive black holes. That sparked a question: which came first—the galaxies or…
Webb Can Directly Test One Theory for Dark Matter
What is it about galaxies and dark matter? Most, if not all galaxies are surrounded by halos of this mysterious,…
How Does the Cosmic Web Drive Galaxy Evolution?
Galaxies experience a long strange trip through the cosmic web as they grow and evolve. It turns out that the…