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. A photo of three people, seen in silhouette, pointing at stars on a large wall of several screens.
    Astronomy

    JWST’s hunt for distant galaxies keeps turning up surprises

    In its first year, the James Webb Space Telescope has found many galaxies from the early universe that are bigger, brighter and more mature than expected.

  2. A photo of Jane Rigby standing in front of a large galaxy image.
    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.

  3. A photo of a sample of the asteroid Ryugu, small black rocks, in a small circular dish.
    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.

  4. An image of the sun's corona shine in a gold hue. With loops and filaments coming off the surface.
    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.

  5. An image of cosmic clouds glowing in X-rays.
    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.

  6. An image from the Hubble Space Telescope of globular star cluster M92.
    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.

  7. an illustration of a galaxy with a quasar, shown as a a swirl of blue and pink with a beam bisecting the center against the starry backdrop of space
    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.

  8. An illustration of a supermassive black hole orbiting an even larger black hole with a field of stars in the background.
    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.

  9. A false-color image of a watery plume coming off Saturn's moon Enceladus.
    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.

  10. A snapshot of a collapsing star spewing jets, colored red and green, outward against the backdrop of space
    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.

  11. Mars' northern hemisphere, shown in false color that highlights lowlands near the north pole
    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.

  12. An illustration of a reddish planet with swirling patterns depicting its radiation field
    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.