Allison Gasparini

All Stories by Allison Gasparini

  1. image of a campfire
    Humans

    Prehistoric people may have used light from fires to create dynamic art

    When brought near flickering flames, prehistoric stone engravings of animals seem to move, experiments with replicas and virtual reality show.

  2. illustration of AB Aurigae star
    Astronomy

    A newly discovered planet renews debate about how some giant worlds form

    An implosion of gas may have given birth to this young exoplanet, which orbits too far from its star to have been built up bit by bit, researchers say.

  3. coronal loops, strands of plasma looping around the sun
    Astronomy

    Some of the sun’s iconic coronal loops may be illusions

    Folds in the plasma that streams from the sun might trick the eye into seeing the well-defined arches, computer simulations of the solar atmosphere show.