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

To Celebrate the Coming of Spring, NASA Releases Images of "Blossoming" Stellar Nurseries

March 30, 2026

This collection of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes contains regions where stars are forming. Often nicknamed “stellar nurseries,” they are cosmic gardens from which stars – not plants – emerge from the interstellar soil of gas and dust.
Exomoons Could Be Habitable for Billions of Years, Provided they have Hydrogen Atmospheres

March 28, 2026

Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has shown that moons around free-floating planets can keep their water oceans liquid for up to 4.3 billion years by virtue of dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating—that is to say, for almost as long as Earth has existed and sufficient time for complex life to develop.
Uncovering the Effects of Microgravity on Liver Metabolism

March 26, 2026

A team led by Professor Mian Long from the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, investigated the effects of space microgravity on cultured liver cells aboard the China Space Station.
The Future of Space Stations - Part II: Commercial Space

March 25, 2026

With the ISS set to retire in 2030, several plans are in place to replace it. These include existing space stations, proposals by rising national space agencies, and commercial space stations. In terms of the commercial space sector, the plans are diverse and numerous.
Rubin Alert Leads to First Follow-Up Observations and Detection of Four Supernovae

March 23, 2026

NSF NOIRLab has completed end-to-end runs of its ecosystem for following up on alerts from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The runs demonstrated how multiple NOIRLab-developed software tools, plus a network of telescopes around the globe, will enable quick follow-up observations of the countless transient objects that Rubin will uncover during its ten-year survey.
How Will Martian Gravity Affect Skeletal Muscle?

March 21, 2026

Marie Mortreux, an assistant professor in the University of Rhode Island’s College of Health Sciences, is part of an international team of researchers studying how the Mars’s gravity would affect astronauts’ skeletal muscle.
Canada Allocates $200 Million Towards the Creation of Nation's First Spaceport

March 19, 2026

Minister of National Defence David McGuinty announced on Monday, March 16th, that the Canadian government is committing $200 million to develop Canada's first commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia, which will be run by Maritime Launch Services.
NASA Exoplanet-Hunting CubeSat Delivers "First Light" Images

March 18, 2026

With the first images from the spacecraft now in hand, the team behind NASA’s Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is ready to begin charting the energetic lives of the galaxy’s most common stars to help answer one of humanity’s most profound questions: Which distant worlds beyond our solar system might be habitable?
The Coming Age of Space Stations

March 16, 2026

With the ISS set to retire in 2030, several plans are in place to replace it. These include existing space stations, proposals by rising national space agencies, and commercial space stations. With multiple outposts in orbit, the potential for research, development, and even conflict is considerable!
NASA's DART Mission Also Changed Didymos' Orbit Around Sun

March 14, 2026

The spacecraft changed the binary system’s orbit, confirming that a kinetic impactor can be an effective planetary defense technique for deflecting a near-Earth object.
ESA's Mars orbiters watch solar superstorm hit the Red Planet

March 12, 2026

What happens when a solar superstorm hits Mars? Thanks to the European Space Agency’s Mars orbiters, we now know: glitching spacecraft and a supercharged upper atmosphere.
New Study Says There's a Way to Make Dyson Bubbles and Stellar Engines Stable

March 11, 2026

While megastructures are clearly speculative, new research shows that they can (in theory) be built in a way that ensures long-term stability. These findings can provide insight into the properties of potential technosignatures in search for extraterrestrial intelligence studies.
New Study Addresses Clotting Risks for Female Astronauts

March 10, 2026

Just a few days in simulated microgravity can subtly change the way women’s blood clots, sparking bigger questions about health monitoring protocols for astronauts who can spend six months or more in orbit, say Simon Fraser University researchers.
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.