Matthew Williams

Matt Williams is a space journalist, science communicator, and author with several published titles and studies. His work is featured in The Ross 248 Project and Interstellar Travel edited by NASA alumni Les Johnson and Ken Roy. He also hosts the podcast series Stories from Space at ITSP Magazine. He lives in beautiful British Columbia with his wife and family. For more information, check out his website.

Recent Articles

Astronomers Produce the Largest Image Ever Taken of the Heart of the Milky Way

March 08, 2026

Astronomers have captured the central region of our Milky Way in a striking new image, unveiling a complex network of filaments of cosmic gas in unprecedented detail. Obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), this rich dataset—the largest ALMA image to date—will allow astronomers to probe the lives of stars in the most extreme region of our galaxy, next to the supermassive black hole at its center.
Astronauts Use Bacteria and Fungi to Harvest Metals in Space

March 08, 2026

If humankind is to explore deep space, one small passenger should not be left behind: microbes. In fact, it would be impossible to leave them behind, since they live on and in our bodies, surfaces and food. Learning how they react to space conditions is critical, but they could also be invaluable fellows in our endeavor to explore space.
VLT Image Captures a "Cosmic Hawk" Spanning its Wings.

March 06, 2026

Today’s Picture of the Week, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), seems to have captured a cosmic hawk as it spans its wings.
Mars Express Images Reveal Mars' Pockmarked Surface

March 06, 2026

Craters, craters, and yet more craters: this snapshot from ESA’s Mars Express is packed full of them, each as fascinating as the last.
Astronomers Using MeerKAT Spot a Cosmic Laser Halfway Across the Universe

March 05, 2026

Astronomers using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa have discovered the most distant hydroxyl megamaser ever detected. It is located in a violently merging galaxy more than 8 billion light-years away, opening a new radio astronomy frontier.
Illinois and UChicago Physicists Develop a New Method for Measuring Cosmic Expansion

March 05, 2026

A team of astrophysicists, cosmologists, and physicists has developed a novel way to compute the Hubble constant using gravitational waves. As our capability to observe gravitational waves improves in the future, this new method could be used to make even more accurate measurements of the Hubble constant, bringing scientists closer to resolving the Hubble tension.
NASA’s Eclipse Megamovie Project Releases Full Data on 2024 Solar Eclipse

March 04, 2026

On April 8, 2024, volunteers participating in NASA’s Eclipse Megamovie citizen science project all around the United States hurried to photograph the solar eclipse with the latest, greatest equipment, capturing groundbreaking images of the Sun’s corona.
NASA Tests Prototype 3D Printed Titanium Spring in Space

March 03, 2026

With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the potential of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to cut costs and complexity for futuristic space antennas. Called JPL Additive Compliant Canister (JACC), the spring deployed on the small commercial spacecraft Proteus Space's Mercury One on Feb. 3, 2026. An onboard camera captured a video of the spring popping out of its container as the spacecraft passed over the Pacific Ocean in low-Earth orbit.
Astronomers Devise a New Way to Measure Cosmic Expansion with Lensed Supernovae

March 02, 2026

Researchers in Munich have used the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to capture five images of one and the same supernova in a single picture. The gravity of two foreground galaxies has deflected the light from a supernova far in the background along different paths to Earth.
Laser-Based 3D Printing Could Build Future Bases on the Moon

March 02, 2026

Simulated lunar dirt can be turned into extremely durable structures, potentially paving the way to more sustainable and cost-effective space missions, a new study suggests. Using a special laser 3D printing method, researchers melted fake lunar soil—a synthetic version of the fine dusty material on the moon surface, called regolith simulant—into layers and fused it with a base surface to manufacture small, heat-resistant objects.
NASA Updates Artemis Program, Adding a Mission and Delaying Lunar Landing

February 28, 2026

As part of a Golden Age of exploration and discovery, NASA announced Friday the agency is increasing its cadence of missions under the Artemis program to achieve the national objective of returning American astronauts to the Moon and establishing an enduring presence.
The LOFAR Telescope Produces the Most Detailed Radio Map of the Universe Ever

February 27, 2026

The radio telescope LOFAR, with a major contribution from Leiden Observatory, has produced the most detailed radio map of the Universe ever made. Never before have so many cosmic radio sources been captured in a single survey: 13.7 million.
A Method for Extracting Oxygen from Extraterrestrial Soils Just Passed a Major Test

February 27, 2026

NASA’s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project completed an important step toward using local resources to support human exploration on the Moon.
How giant galaxies could form just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang

February 25, 2026

The existence of massive, elliptical galaxies in the early universe has puzzled astronomers for two decades. An international team led by Nikolaus Sulzenauer and Axel Weiß from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to shed light on this open question of galaxy formation. They studied one of the most spectacular galaxy aggregations in great detail and published their results in the current issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
What Causes Those Snowmen in Space?

February 25, 2026

Astronomers have long debated why so many icy objects in the outer solar system look like snowmen. Michigan State University researchers now have evidence of the surprisingly simple process that could be responsible for their creation. Jackson Barnes, an MSU graduate student, has created the first simulation that reproduces the two-lobed shape naturally with gravitational collapse. His work is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Map the Earth's Magnetic Shield with the Space Umbrella Project

February 25, 2026

NASA has announced the Space Umbrella project, in which participants will use data from NASA’s Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission to shed light on solar storms.
NASA is Preparing to Roll Artemis II Rocket Back into the Hangar

February 23, 2026

Grounded until at least April, NASA's giant moon rocket is headed back to the hangar this week for more repairs before astronauts climb aboard.
Supercomputer Simulations Crack a Long-Standing Mystery About Red Giant Stars

February 23, 2026

Researchers at University of Victoria's Astronomy Research Centre (ARC) and the University of Minnesota study the changes in the chemical composition at the surface of red giant stars.
Could it be We've Received Alien Signals in the Past and Didn't Notice? Not Bloody Likely, According to New Study

February 22, 2026

For decades, scientists have searched the skies for signs of extraterrestrial technology. A study from EPFL asks a sharp question: if alien signals have already reached Earth without us noticing, what should we realistically expect to detect today?
Researchers Examine How We Could Achieve Sustainable Water Systems for Space

February 20, 2026

If humans want to live in space, whether on spacecraft or the surface of Mars, one of the first problems to solve is that of water for drinking, hygiene, and life-sustaining plants. Even bringing water to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit costs on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. Thus, finding efficient, durable, and trustworthy ways to source and reuse water in space is a clear necessity for long-term habitation there.