Christopher Crockett

Christopher has a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles. After eight years of searching for exoplanets, probing distant galaxies and exploring comets, Chris realized he enjoyed talking about astronomy a lot more than actually doing it. After being awarded a 2013 AAAS Mass Media Fellowship to write for Scientific American, he left a research career at the U.S. Naval Observatory to pursue a new life writing about anything and everything within the local cosmological horizon. Since 2014, he's been working with Science News.

What is the zodiac?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Astronomy Essentials | Human World | Space | 6 months ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

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 Christopher Crockett in Space | 10 months ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

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 a coronal mass ejection?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Space | 1 year ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

Want to brush up on your knowledge about these solar hiccups – CMEs, for short – that can ripple through our solar system and can interrupt satellites and power grids on Earth?

What is the electromagnetic spectrum?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Space | 2 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

The electromagnetic spectrum describes all the wavelengths of light. From dark nebulae to exploding stars, it reveals an otherwise invisible universe.

What is retrograde motion?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Astronomy Essentials | Space | 2 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

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.

Ecliptic traces the sun’s path

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Astronomy Essentials | Space | 2 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

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.

What are gamma ray bursts?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Space | 6 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

Only the most powerful explosions in the universe.

What is a light-year?

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Space | 6 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

Hint: A light-year is a unit of distance, not time.

Wolf-Rayets are the most massive and brightest stars known

Posted by Christopher Crockett in Space | 7 years ago

Posted by Christopher Crockett

Wolf-Rayet stars make our sun look tiny. They can be hundreds of times more massive, millions of times brighter, and tens of thousands of degrees hotter.