Michelle Starr
ScienceAlert
Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Recent articles by Michelle:
The Ghostly Sounds of Auroras Can Be Heard, Even When They're Invisible
If you're up high, and you listen carefully on nights when the northern sky dances with blazing sheets of green light – Earth's spectacular aurora borealis – you might hear some ghostly sounds. → Read More
Potentially Alive 830-Million-Year-Old Organisms Found Trapped in Ancient Rock
An incredible discovery has just revealed a potential new source for understanding life on ancient Earth. → Read More
For The First Time, Scientists Have Grown Plants in Moon Dirt. It Didn't Go Great
When the Artemis program returns humans to the Moon in (hopefully) a few years' time, there are considerable logistics that need to be addressed for keeping such fragile beings alive in such a hostile environment. → Read More
This Record-Breaking 'Gold Standard' Star Is Unlike Any We've Seen Before
What's in a star? Well, if you're a highly evolved specimen nearing the end of its life named HD 222925, rather a heck of a lot, actually. → Read More
Astronomers Witness The X-Ray 'Fireball' of a Stellar Nova For The First Time
The brief, yet colossal eruption of a dead star undergoing a nova explosion has been captured by one of the most powerful X-ray instruments in space. → Read More
BREAKING: We Have The First-Ever Image of The Black Hole at The Center of The Milky Way
Four and a half billion years ago, our pale blue dot was born in the rubble left over from the birth of a star. Since then, we've been locked in a cosmic dance; Earth whirls around the Sun; and the Sun whirls around the galactic center – the dark, → Read More
Vast, City-Sized Lake Discovered Miles Below The Antarctic Ice Sheet
The Antarctic ice is finding its secrets harder and harder to keep. → Read More
There Are Tiny Bright Dots All Over The Sun, And We May Finally Know Their Source
Sunspots aren't the only speckles decorating the dynamic face of our Sun. Solar physicists have made a close study of tiny, fleeting speckles of brightness that emerge and fade in less than a minute on average, in regions where loops of plasma rise f → Read More
These Eerie Wails Are a Real Sound Wave From a Supermassive Black Hole
We might not be able to hear sound in space, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. In 2003, astronomers detected something truly astonishing: acoustic waves propagating through the gas surrounding a supermassive black hole, 250 million light-years a → Read More
Several 'Echoing' Black Holes Have Just Been Discovered in The Milky Way
Echoes of light bouncing off thick clouds of material around active black holes are helping astronomers better understand the wacky space-time in the immediate vicinity of these extreme objects. → Read More
This Terrifying Space Angel Is Actually a Merger of Two Colossal Cosmic Objects
Two galaxies locked together in an intricate gravitational dance have created a beautiful illusion in the depths of space. → Read More
These Tiny Crystals Are 'Time Capsules' of Earth's Early Plate Tectonic Activity
Tiny crystals of zircon dated to 3.8 billion years ago contain the earliest geochemical evidence yet for plate tectonic activity here on Earth. → Read More
Venus Should Be 'Locked' With One Side Facing The Sun. Here's Why It Isn't
When two bodies in space are close together enough, their gravity acts as a brake, slowing them until one's rotation 'locks' to match its orbit. → Read More
Look at This Epic NASA Backpack Designed For Astronauts on The Moon
Human explorers on the Moon may be able to send back unprecedented, finely detailed maps of the lunar surface, thanks to a new backpack device developed by NASA and its partners. → Read More
Astronomers Discover Brand-New Type of Star Explosion: The Micronova
A newly discovered type of stellar explosion could help us better understand thermonuclear outbursts on dead stars. → Read More
Scientists Want to Send a NASA Probe to Uranus as a Major Research Priority
Uranus has been sadly neglected. Probes have visited Mars, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mercury. Heck, even Jupiter's moons are getting their own spacecraft. But the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, in the distant reaches of our Solar System, have not h → Read More
One of The Solar System's Best Candidates For Alien Life Has Signs of Liquid Water
Strange double ridges on the surface of Jupiter's ice moon Europa could be signposts to shallow reservoirs of water. → Read More
Scientists Have Eradicated Liver Cancer in Rats Using Non-Invasive Sound Waves
Rats afflicted with liver cancer have demonstrated the efficacy of a fascinating, non-invasive treatment. → Read More
A Strange Genetic Link Between Humans And Sea Anemones Was Just Confirmed
A gene linked to the development of hearing in humans has just been linked to sensory development in sea anemones, too. → Read More
This Alien World Is So Extreme, It Has Literal Clouds of Vaporized Rock
An exoplanet some 1,360 light-years away is so close to its star, its clouds consist of vaporized rock. → Read More