Matthew Williams

Matt Williams is a space journalist, science communicator, and author with several published titles and studies. His work is featured in The Ross 248 Project and Interstellar Travel edited by NASA alumni Les Johnson and Ken Roy. He also hosts the podcast series Stories from Space on Patreon. He lives in beautiful British Columbia with his wife and family. For more information, check out his website.

Recent Articles

New Simulations Show How Galactic Centers Grow Together

August 26, 2026

Using a state-of-the-art galaxy simulation, a team led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) gained new insights into the processes shaping galactic centres across the Universe and the formation history of the Milky Way.
Astronomers Use Rare Ultra-Magnetic Star to Crack a Quantum Mystery

August 23, 2026

An international team observed a magnetar known as 1E 1547.0–5408 using NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), leading to what could be the first detection of vacuum birefringence taking place in the magnetar’s ultra-strong magnetic field. These findings could potentially resolve a long-standing mystery quantum mechanics.
White Dwarf-Red Dwarf Binaries Power Cosmic Lasers

August 22, 2026

Researchers have helped unravel the mystery of why certain pairs of stars pulse with regular, long-period bursts of radio waves. The particular class of objects they observed come in pairs that always include a compact dead star, called a white dwarf, locked in orbit with an M dwarf, a red star smaller than our Sun.
The CosmoCube Satellite Will Listen to the Early Universe From the Far Side of the Moon

August 21, 2026

A tiny UK-developed satellite, roughly the size of a small carry-on suitcase, could help answer one of the biggest questions in cosmology: what happened in the roughly 150 million years of cosmic dark ages, before the universe’s first stars appeared?
Webb Captures the Treasure Chest at the Heart of the Carina Nebula

August 19, 2026

This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month takes us to a fantastical realm within our home galaxy, where piercing starlight and billowing winds sculpt dust clouds into inventive shapes. This scene is from the Carina Nebula, which lies just 7500 light-years away in the constellation Carina (the Keel).
Interstellar Travel IV: Solar, Magnetic, & Directed-Energy Sails

August 19, 2026

In our fourth installment in the Interstellar Travel series, we'll examine solar sails, magnetosails, and directed-energy propulsion (DEP), which are currently the most plausible methods for reaching another star system within a human lifetime.
Webb Captures Clearest Image Yet of the Lion Nebula

August 17, 2026

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured images of NGC 2392 (also known as the Lion Nebula), which Hubble previously imaged in 2000.
NASA's SkyFall Mars Helicopters Will Feature a Revolutionary Antenna Design

August 17, 2026

Engineers developed a unique fabric-based design for a ground-penetrating radar that will be a key instrument on NASA’s SkyFall Mars helicopters. The hardware will enable the SkyFall mission’s trio of planetary rotorcraft to use ground-penetrating radar to study the Martian subsurface.
Hubble Reveals that Star Formation is Slowing Down in the Andromeda Galaxy

August 14, 2026

A team of scientists led by the University of Washington has studied how star formation is declining in the Andromeda galaxy using highly detailed Hubble surveys.
Europa's Interior Ocean Could be Harder to Reach Than We Thought

August 11, 2026

Lujendra Ojha, a planetary scientist, led a study suggesting that Europa’s icy shell may be a stronger barrier between the moon’s hidden ocean and its surface than previously thought.
Interstellar Travel III: Antimatter to the Rescue?

August 10, 2026

With the end of the Space Age and the winding down of the Cold War, scientists again returned to the question of interstellar flight. Having failed to realize a working concept that could be realized in the near term, more exotic ideas began to be considered, reflecting further breakthroughs in theoretical physics.
NASA's MAVEN Illuminates New Understanding of Auroras at Mars

August 09, 2026

NASA MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission scientists have uncovered a key puzzle piece in understanding certain types of auroras on Mars, finding that they form in a similar way to Earth-based auroras.
SpaceX Junk Hits the Moon. Not a Good Sign

August 07, 2026

The spent upper stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has struck the Moon, illustrating the hazard posed by debris in cislunar space. This problem will increase as launches to orbit and to the Moon become more common in the coming years.
Astronomers Find a New Object from the Early Universe Using Webb Data

August 07, 2026

Homer Dávila Gutierrez, director of SKYCR.ORG, has identified a gravitational arc candidate in the galaxy cluster MACS J0308.9+2645 from public data from the James Webb Space Telescope. The object had not been previously reported and is located at a photometric redshift close to 4.4. The preprint is available on arXiv and the manuscript is under review in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan.
Venus Isn't Dead After All

August 06, 2026

Simulations conducted by researchers at ETH Zurich suggest a strong likelihood that Venus’s rift valleys are still geologically active rather than being mere relics of a bygone era, as had been previously believed. This finding reshapes our understanding of Earth’s sister planet and will influence future missions to Venus.
Interstellar Travel II: the Birth of Fusion Drives

August 03, 2026

During the Space Age and Cold War, fusion-powered spacecraft systems were investigated as a possible means of reaching another star system within a human lifetime. Many of the proposed ideas are still on the table today, waiting for future advancements to make them realizable.
Interstellar Travel: The Space Age and Nuclear Rockets

July 31, 2026

Given the state of our technology, it would take a spacecraft a ridiculously long time to reach even the nearest star in our galaxy. However, scientists continue to ponder ways in which we could achieve the dream of interstellar spaceflight. Here are a few of their best ideas.
The Risks of Debris Between the Earth and the Moon for Future Exploration

July 29, 2026

A new study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) addresses the threat of debris in cislunar space, which could pose threats for future missions bound for the Moon.
Samples of Lunar Rock Are Leading Scientists to Rethink the Moon's History

July 28, 2026

Based on a new analysis of the Chang'e-6 lunar samples, scientists are again questioning the timing and intensity of the Late Heavy Bombardment period.
Chang'e-6 Samples Provide an Ancient Record of the Moon's Far Side.

July 28, 2026

The samples returned by the Chang'e-6 mission from the far side of the Moon reveal that the two hemispheres have had rather different experiences when it comes to space weather.