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Christopher Crockett

Christopher Crockett

Chris Crockett got his Ph.D. in astronomy from UCLA in 2011 and worked at Lowell Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory. He then realized he enjoyed talking about astronomy a lot more than actually doing it. After being awarded a Mass Media Fellowship in 2013 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he spent a summer writing for Scientific American, then went on to become the staff astronomy writer at Science News from 2014 - 2017. These days, he freelances, focusing on stories about astronomy, planetary science, and physics. His work has appeared in Science News, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, Knowable, Sky & Telescope, and the American Physical Society's online magazine Physics.

A rainbow-like background, with concentric circles indicating movement. The red side is stretched out; the blue side is squished up.

What do redshifts tell astronomers?

Posted by in Astronomy Essentials | 3 months ago
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A redshift reveals how an object is moving in space and enables astronomers to discover otherwise-invisible planets and the movements of galaxies, and to uncover the beginnings of our universe.

What are coronal mass ejections?

Posted by in Space | 4 months ago
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Coronal mass ejections – CMEs for short – are powerful eruptions near the surface of the sun that ripple through our solar system and can interfere with satellites and power grids on Earth.

A colorful, ring-shaped cloud in space.

What are white dwarf stars?

Posted by in Astronomy Essentials | Space | 7 months ago
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White dwarfs are dead stars. A single white dwarf contains roughly the mass of our sun in a volume no bigger than our planet. Our sun will become a white dwarf someday.

What is the electromagnetic spectrum?

Posted by in Space | 2 years ago
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The electromagnetic spectrum describes all the wavelengths of light, both seen and unseen.

What is the zodiac?

Posted by in Astronomy Essentials | Human World | Space | 2 years ago
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Maybe you associate the word ‘zodiac’ with astrology, but it has an honored place in astronomy, too. It’s defined by the annual path of the sun across our sky.

What is a parsec?

Posted by in Space | 3 years ago
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Why do professional astronomers speak of distances in the universe not in terms of light-years, but in terms of parsecs, a distance of 3.26 light-years? Explanation here.

What is retrograde motion?

Posted by in Astronomy Essentials | Space | 4 years ago
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Retrograde motion of Jupiter or Mars or Saturn in our sky is an illusion, caused by Earth’s passing these slower-moving outer worlds. But there’s a real retrograde motion, too.
Sun's path through the zodiac.

Ecliptic traces the sun’s path

Posted by in Astronomy Essentials | Space | 4 years ago
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The ecliptic is an imaginary line that marks the path of the sun. The signs of the Zodiac come from the constellations that lie along this line.
Gamma ray burst

What are gamma ray bursts?

Posted by in Space | 7 years ago
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Only the most powerful explosions in the universe.

What is a light-year?

Posted by in Space | 8 years ago
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Hint: A light-year is a unit of distance, not time.