NEW: Back in July 2024, an asteroid exploded above New York. None of it was thought to have survived. It turns out that a huge chunk of this space rock smashed through a house in New Jersey—and it contains the chemistry of an alien world. 🤯 Me @ New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/s...

NEW: Back in July 2024, an asteroid exploded above New York. None of it was thought to have survived. It turns out that a huge chunk of this space rock smashed through a house in New Jersey—and it contains the chemistry of an alien world. 🤯 Me @ New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/s...

Happy Asteroid Day, to those who celebrate! Want to know how NASA, @esa.int and a global team of scientists and engineers are racing to save the world from killer asteroids? Then buy my book, HOW TO KILL AN ASTEROID—now available in paperback! ☄️ 💥 ☠️ wwnorton.com/books/how-to...

Pretty sure Star City was a perfect series of television. Bloody hell.

I’m genuinely astounded that, for some madcap reason, the International Astronomical Union decided to name an asteroid after yours truly! This is both absurd and heartwarming. (20635) Robinandrews hangs out between Mars and Jupiter—and at 24km across, it could kill everyone on Earth. ;)

NEW: This week, astronomers are seeing double. A day after Japan’s spacecraft flew by a strange, 2-lobed asteroid, China’s space agency announced that its own robotic envoy had arrived at another space rock — one it wants to heist in the coming months. Me @ NYT www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/s...

Meteorite peeps: quick question. I know that enstatite chondrites have a similar chemical makeup to Earth, something that makes scientists think ECs may be like the ‘building blocks’ of Earth. But what about enstatite achondrites? Can we say the same about those, even if they lack chondrules?

Hello asteroid peeps! Can anyone quickly have a chat to me (ideally via email) about Tianwen-2’s arrival at Kamo'oalewa? Let me know ASAP!

NEW: If we have to defend Earth from a killer asteroid, we may need to fly a spacecraft to it super quickly so we can spy on it. As a test, Japan’s space agency did just that—and when they met the asteroid, they were greeted with…two, smushed together! Me @ NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/s...

YO! I know a lot of asteroid scientists are at a conference right now, but is anyone available to talk for a story about how weird Torifune, the contact binary (!) that Hayabusa2# just flew by, is? LOOK AT THIS THING

Hayabusa2 has performed the Torifune flyby, and on July 5 at 18:35 JST, ground control confirmed that the spacecraft is operating normally.

Happy Asteroid Day, to those who celebrate! Want to know how NASA, @esa.int and a global team of scientists and engineers are racing to save the world from killer asteroids? Then buy my book, HOW TO KILL AN ASTEROID—now available in paperback! ☄️ 💥 ☠️ wwnorton.com/books/how-to...

Tomorrow, an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft will take off from the Marshall Islands, 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii. With that, an ambitious quest to save the doomed NASA SWIFT space telescope will begin. www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

NEW: Yesterday, a rare catastrophe struck Venezuela when a magnitude 7.2 and a magnitude 7.5 quake hit the same region *within less than a minute*. For the @nytimes.com, I asked scientists how this happened, why they were so devastating, and what might happen next. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/s...

NEW: Yesterday, a rare catastrophe struck Venezuela when a magnitude 7.2 and a magnitude 7.5 quake hit the same region *within less than a minute*. For the @nytimes.com, I asked scientists how this happened, why they were so devastating, and what might happen next. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/s...

NEW: In 'The Martian', astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and must find a way to grow potatoes in the planet’s unforgiving, ochre soil. Now, real-life space botanist Jessica Atkin wants to do the same – with chickpeas – on the Moon. Me @newscientist.com www.newscientist.com/article/2529...

NEW: Earth is drenched in life-giving water. But scientists don't actually know where it all came from. Comets? Asteroids? Now, some (crazy) new experiments offer a tantalising possibility: Earth might have made its own oceans! Me @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/where-did-ea...

NEW: Earth is drenched in life-giving water. But scientists don't actually know where it all came from. Comets? Asteroids? Now, some (crazy) new experiments offer a tantalising possibility: Earth might have made its own oceans! Me @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/where-did-ea...

NEW: Before the first stars were born, there were the Cosmic Dark Ages, a mysterious epoch that whispers in radio waves. And I got a sneaky look at a new plan to hear them—by unfurling an origami telescope in an impact crater on the Moon. 🤯 Me for NatGeo www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

NEW: Before the first stars were born, there were the Cosmic Dark Ages, a mysterious epoch that whispers in radio waves. And I got a sneaky look at a new plan to hear them—by unfurling an origami telescope in an impact crater on the Moon. 🤯 Me for NatGeo www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

NEW: Sometimes stories are about major scientific breakthroughs, about the origin of life, the end of worlds—dramatic epiphanies about the cosmos. And sometimes a flaming asteroid photobombs an erupting volcano. Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/s...

NEW: Sometimes stories are about major scientific breakthroughs, about the origin of life, the end of worlds—dramatic epiphanies about the cosmos. And sometimes a flaming asteroid photobombs an erupting volcano. Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/s...

NEW: NASA just made a flurry of announcements about its plan to build a Moon base. They also revealed that they will take not just one, but TWO futuristic rovers to the lunar surface. And last summer, for NatGeo, I got to take them both for a test drive. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

NEW: Can we mine asteroids to transform the world economy? The thrillseekers at @astroforge.bsky.social think so—and this year, their do-or-die mission to chase down an asteroid will launch. Will they triumph? For PopMech, I visited their HQ to find out. www.popularmechanics.com/space/a70295...

NEW: NASA wants to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon—and it's not as crazy as it sounds. But how can they build, launch, land and operate one without a grim accident? For @sciam.bsky.social, I asked leading nuclear experts how NASA might just pull it off. www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

so should we put a nuclear reactor up on the moon or www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...

NEW: NASA wants to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon—and it's not as crazy as it sounds. But how can they build, launch, land and operate one without a grim accident? For @sciam.bsky.social, I asked leading nuclear experts how NASA might just pull it off. www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

aww the Waymos just wanted to hang out and plot stuff 🥰

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: Earth’s quantum computers run on helium-3, but only kilograms of this rare isotope are made worldwide each year. The moon, however, may offer a helium-3 motherlode. Is a lunar ‘gold rush’ in store? By @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-...

NEW: We take weather forecasts – there’s an 80% chance of rain tomorrow – for granted. Will we ever be able to say the same for volcanic eruptions? Maybe—if we can pin down their secret physics. Here’s my debut column (!) for @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/will-we-ever...

Qualia essays go where curiosity leads. This week, @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social explores why forecasting volcanic eruptions is such a big ask. “They’re baroque geologic beasts with hidden, labyrinthine plumbing.” Read the latest column: www.quantamagazine.org/will-we-ever...

Congratulations, @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social! 🎉 Read the award-winning story: spklr.io/6007EzB2S

Fun bit of news: my @sciam.bsky.social Juno/Jupes feature, "A Planet Revealed", won the @aas.org 2026 Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism award! Thanks aplenty to my glorious editor @clarakm.bsky.social for shaping it, and always letting me write big space-y tales. :)

Yo! Question for my American or US-based seismologists. Can anyone explain this to mean? (I’ve been told that an active fault in specific regions are those that slipped during the Holocene, in the past ~11,000 years. So what’s this all about?)

NEW: Good news, everyone. You know those weird rings around Uranus? Astronomers have worked out where two of them have come from. You can stop panicking now. It’s not you. It’s Mu. (And Nu.) Me @sciencenews.bsky.social www.sciencenews.org/article/uran...

NEW: Magma is a furious mixture of molten rock, crystals and gases. It normally makes lots of noise—but, in 2022, a huge volume of magma snuck up on an island in the Azores without making a sound. Yep: magma has a stealth mode. Me @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-vo...

NEW: Magma is a furious mixture of molten rock, crystals and gases. It normally makes lots of noise—but, in 2022, a huge volume of magma snuck up on an island in the Azores without making a sound. Yep: magma has a stealth mode. Me @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-vo...

NEW: Some of the cosmos’s biggest stars are missing. Red supergiants should be exploding all over the sky, but we can’t seem to find them. Are they hidden by something? Are they blinking out of existence? JWST might have some clues. Me for NatGeo www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

NEW: In March, fireball after fireball coursed through the skies of North America and Europe—a time lacking in major meteor showers. So where the heck are all these space rocks coming from? I investigated this meteor mystery in my latest for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/s...

NEW: In a surprise announcement, NASA said it will launch the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft to Mars in 2028. If it works, it could win them the race to the Red Planet. Here’s an inside look on how it’ll work, @technologyreview.com www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/14/1...

NEW: After today's magnitude 7.7 quake off the Pacific coast of Japan, the country has issued a 'megaquake advisory', suggesting there's a 10x greater risk of a magnitude 8.0+ quake in the coming days. I break down what this means for @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/risk...

NEW: After today's magnitude 7.7 quake off the Pacific coast of Japan, the country has issued a 'megaquake advisory', suggesting there's a 10x greater risk of a magnitude 8.0+ quake in the coming days. I break down what this means for @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/risk...

Seismologists! I have a couple of very brief questions to ask you about today’s earthquake offshore from Japan. If you’re around take a quick call, let me know. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

NEW: In a surprise announcement, NASA said it will launch the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft to Mars in 2028. If it works, it could win them the race to the Red Planet. Here’s an inside look on how it’ll work, @technologyreview.com www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/14/1...

NEW: Should all go well, the crew of Artemis II will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean today. So: what’s next? In short: a moon base, built by astronauts and self-driving rovers, with robots scouting out benighted craters for hidden water. Me, for NatGeo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

random fish in the Pacific Ocean: wow what a nice day I’ve had, nothing could possibly ruin this wonderful day for me, not even something crazy like a metal creature falling from the heavens and bonking me on the head humanity:

Now that's a beautiful sight

NEW: Should all go well, the crew of Artemis II will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean today. So: what’s next? In short: a moon base, built by astronauts and self-driving rovers, with robots scouting out benighted craters for hidden water. Me, for NatGeo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

NEW: Artemis II's launch is exciting for many reasons. Here's a weird one: aboard the spacecraft are USB-sized "organ chips"—living pieces of the astronauts' bone marrow that will test how each of them reacts to dangerous cosmic radiation. 🤯 Me @supercluster.com www.supercluster.com/editorial/ar...

NEW: During the Artemis era, scientists are set to solve several major mysteries about both the Moon and Earth. That's the thing about the Moon: it's a silent library of ancient books written in volcanic ink. Now we get to read 'em. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...