Lisa Grossman

Lisa Grossman

Astronomy Writer

Lisa Grossman is the astronomy writer for Science News. Previously she was a news editor at New Scientist, where she ran the physical sciences section of the magazine for three years. Before that, she spent three years at New Scientist as a reporter, covering space, physics and astronomy. She has a degree in astronomy from Cornell University and a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz. Lisa was a finalist for the AGU David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, and received the Institute of Physics/Science and Technology Facilities Council physics writing award and the AAS Solar Physics Division Popular Writing Award. She interned at Science News in 2009-2010.

All Stories by Lisa Grossman

  1. Astronomy

    Meet Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for JWST and advocate for LGBTQ+ astronomers

    Rigby, senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, believes being part of the LGBTQ+ community has made her a better astronomer.

  2. Astronomy

    Ryugu asteroid samples are sprinkled with stardust older than the solar system

    Slivers of the asteroid appear to be from the fringes of the solar system and could reveal bits of the history of the sun and its planets.

  3. Astronomy

    Coronal rain has been seen splashing on the sun

    New images of the solar corona, taken by the Solar Orbiter probe, reveal bright fireball effects and upwelling induced by falling plasma droplets.

  4. Astronomy

    200 years ago, the Milky Way’s central black hole briefly awoke

    The black hole is thought to be mostly quiet and dim. Now, glowing cosmic clouds have revealed the behemoth’s last flare.

  5. Astronomy

    A star cluster in the Milky Way appears to be as old as the universe

    Globular cluster M92 is about 13.8 billion years old, a new calculation suggests. Getting the age right could help resolve a bigger cosmic conundrum.

  6. Astronomy

    In a first, JWST detected starlight from distant galaxies with quasars

    Until JWST’s sharp infrared eyes came along, it wasn’t possible to see the galaxies hosting extremely bright supermassive black holes called quasars.

  7. Astronomy

    A supermassive black hole orbiting a bigger one revealed itself with a flash

    A supermassive black hole binary system has puzzled astronomers for decades. Now they’ve finally seen direct signals from the smaller of the two.

  8. Planetary Science

    JWST captured Enceladus’ plume spraying water nearly 10,000 kilometers into space

    NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals the rate at which Saturn’s moon Enceladus spews water and where that water ends up.

  9. Astronomy

    A simulation of a dying star shows how it could create gravitational waves

    Massive jets and an expanding cocoon of debris from a collapsing star could be a source of never-before-seen ripples in spacetime.

  10. Planetary Science

    A quake on Mars showed its crust is thicker than Earth’s

    Seismic data from NASA’s Insight lander reveal the crust is roughly 50 kilometers thick, with the northern crust being thinner than the south’s.

  11. Astronomy

    The first radiation belt outside the solar system has been spotted

    Encircling a Jupiter-sized body about 18 light-years from Earth, the radiation belt is 10 million times as bright as the ones around Jupiter.

  12. Physics

    Black holes resolve paradoxes by destroying quantum states

    A classic quantum experiment done near a black hole would create a paradox, physicists report. But not if the black hole collapses quantum states.