headshot of temporary astronomy writer Liz Kruesi

Liz Kruesi

Liz Kruesi has written about astronomy and space since 2005, and received the AAS High-Energy Astrophysics Division science journalism award in 2013. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisc.

All Stories by Liz Kruesi

  1. illustration of a mini-Neptune exoplanet
    Astronomy

    Mini-Neptunes may become super-Earths as the exoplanets lose their atmospheres

    Starlight is eroding the atmospheres of a handful of gassy exoplanets that are a bit smaller than Neptune, gradually exposing the rocky cores within.

  2. a black container of dark faux asteroid soil and peat moss, held by a man wearing a gray shirt and jeans. There is a tiny chili pepper seedling poking through the dirt
    Planetary Science

    Astronauts might be able to use asteroid soil to grow crops

    Researchers grew romaine lettuce, chili pepper and pink radish plants in mixtures of faux asteroid soil and peat moss.

  3. Astronaut Chris Cassidy lifts weights on the International Space Station.
    Space

    Six months in space leads to a decade’s worth of long-term bone loss

    Even after a year of recovery in Earth’s gravity, astronauts who’d been in space six months or more still had bone loss equal to a decade of aging.

  4. illustration of galaxy A1689-zD1 showing warmer gas in yellow in the middle and cooler gas in red spreading out
    Astronomy

    An otherwise quiet galaxy in the early universe is spewing star stuff

    Seen as it was 700 million years after the Big Bang, the galaxy churns out a relatively paltry number of stars. And yet it’s heaving gas into space.

  5. the galaxy M81
    Astronomy

    Seven newfound dwarf galaxies sit on just one side of a larger galaxy

    Seven newly found dwarf galaxy candidates are stick to just one side of the large galaxy M81. Astronomers don’t know why.

  6. 31 milligrams of dark gray dust and debris from asteroid Ryugu in a white circular sample dish
    Planetary Science

    Samples of the asteroid Ryugu are scientists’ purest pieces of the solar system

    Samples Hayabusa2 brought to Earth from asteroid Ryugu are far fresher than similar types of meteorites that scientists have found.

  7. the MeerKAT observatory
    Astronomy

    A newfound, oddly slow pulsar shouldn’t emit radio waves — yet it does

    The highly magnetic neutron star rotates three times slower than the previous record holder, challenging the theorical understanding of these objects.

  8. an image of a 'hedgehog,' a newly found feature on the sun that appears to radiate spiky jets of cooler gas against a background of hotter plasma
    Astronomy

    The Solar Orbiter spacecraft spotted a ‘hedgehog’ on the sun

    In its closest flyby yet of the sun, the Solar Orbiter came within 48 million kilometers of our star, revealing new details.

  9. Crab Nebula
    Astronomy

    Pulsars may power cosmic rays with the highest-known energies in the universe

    Earth is pelted by energetic particles from space. The source might be the magnetic remains of massive stars, a new study suggests.

  10. a picture of a large screen showing a video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon during a congressional hearing
    Science & Society

    Why some scientists want serious research into UFOs

    Science grapples with unknown phenomena all the time. Investigating UAP and whether they're related to aliens shouldn't be different, researchers say.

  11. An image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way
    Astronomy

    We finally have an image of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way

    Observations from the Event Horizon Telescope reveal the turbulent region around our home galaxy’s black hole, Sagittarius A*, in new detail.

  12. illustration of sunlight heating and evaporating the disk of gas and dust around a young star
    Astronomy

    The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets

    As the young sun’s radiation evaporated gas from its surrounding disk, it triggered a jumbling of the giant planets’ orbits, simulations suggest.