freelance science journalist and author
From Cosmos, 21 December 2023: “Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from, neutrino?” This 1880’s folk tune – Cotton-Eyed Joe – now popular with line dancers, could well have been adapted to be the theme of last week’s gathering of scientists from around the world who gathered in Sydney to … Continue reading Scientists agree on new group to search for dark matter
From National Geographic Travel, 26 June 2018: Want to explore the wonders of the universe without the light-years of travel and gravity sickness? Welcome to the exciting world of astro-tourism, where terrestrial astronomers and their telescopes take you on a journey to the stars. Australia’s clear skies and vast tracts of uninhabited land make it … Continue reading The six best places to stargaze in Australia
From ABC Science, 5 July 2017 The fastest-moving stars in our galaxy may have been shot off the bow of a passing smaller galaxy. These so-called “galactic hypervelocity stars” are large and short-lived but travel up to 1,000 kilometres per second. Strangely, most of them appear to be in an unusual cluster in the northern … Continue reading Milky Way’s fast-moving galactic hypervelocity stars may have come from another galaxy
From ABC Science, 23 February 2017: Seven Earth-sized planets, many of which could harbour life, have been discovered orbiting a dwarf star in our own galactic neighbourhood. The complex alien solar system hosts the largest number yet of detected worlds capable of having liquid water on their surface, a team of astronomers reported on Thursday … Continue reading Alien solar system of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby dwarf star could be rich with water and life
From ABC News in Science, 3 May 2016: Astronomers have discovered three planets orbiting the habitable zone of an ultra-cool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth. The discovery, reported today in Nature, is the first evidence supporting the hypothesis that these very low-mass and low-temperature stars should have Earth-sized or smaller planets orbiting them. … Continue reading Three planets discovered orbiting nearby cool small star ‘best places to look for life’
From ABC Science, 26 August 2015: Apart from being home to the only known forms of life in the universe, our Milky Way galaxy isn’t all that unique. It’s a typical large spiral galaxy, between 100,000 and 180,000 light years wide and containing between 200 billion and 400 billion stars. The Milky Way has four … Continue reading What would the Milky Way galaxy look like from across the universe?
From ABC Science Online, 19 August 2015: It may hurt your brain to think about it, but it seems that the answer is likely to be yes, or at least the numbers are roughly in the same ballpark. Astronomers actually set out to answer this question about a decade ago. It’s a tricky problem to … Continue reading Are there more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth?
I wrote my first astronomy story recently. It was one of those stories where the journal/research organisation press release sounds amazing and you think, ‘wow, this story is going to write itself’. Then you look at the actual paper and you can’t even understand what the title means. Reading the abstract makes your brain leak … Continue reading Do you need a science background to write about science?
From ABC Science News Online, 10 February 2014: Astronomers have discovered the oldest known star, born in the fiery wake of a first generation supernova after the Big Bang. The star, with the catchy name SMSS J031300.362670839.3, came to the attention of an international team of astronomers because of its unique chemical fingerprint showing it … Continue reading Oldest known star discovered
Bianca Nogrady 