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Leah Crane is the physics and space reporter at New Scientist

Leah Crane

Physics and space reporter

Bio

Leah Crane is the physics and space reporter at New Scientist, covering topics ranging from private space flight to cosmology to quantum mechanics. She is based in Chicago. Prior to joining New Scientist in 2016, her work has been published at outlets including SpaceNews, Eos, Smithsonian Magazine, and Symmetry Magazine. She writes New Scientist's weekly space newsletter, Launchpad.

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Space

Radio bursts from space are exhibiting a strange ‘sad trombone’ effect

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MMX mission

Space

Japan is sending a rover to Mars's moon Phobos in 2024

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Europa Clipper Reaction Wheel installations Requester: Gretchen Mccartney Photographer: Gregory M. Waigand Date: 2022-10-14 Photolab order: 106955-11.00.00.A04

Space

Europa Clipper will launch to Jupiter in 2024 to explore its icy moon

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Illustration of Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander

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International fleet of spacecraft is heading to the moon in 2024

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PALMS instrument

Earth

Dead spacecraft are seeding the upper atmosphere with metal

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Space

We may have found a crater on Jupiter’s moon Io for the first time

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Uranus's moon Miranda

Space

Moons around Uranus may suddenly develop atmospheres in the spring

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Possibly the smallest stars ever discovered

Space

Astronomers have spotted what may be the smallest stars ever seen

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This illustration shows NASA's Cassini spacecraft diving through the plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus, in 2015

Space

Cyanide in the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus could be good for life

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Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124?s nebula. The nebula is made of material cast off from the aging star in random ejections, and from dust produced in the ensuing turbulence. This brilliant stage of mass loss precedes the star?s eventual supernova, when nuclear fusion in its core stops and the pressure of gravity causes it to collapse in on itself, and then explode. As MIRI demonstrates here, Webb will help astronomers to explore questions that were previously only left to theory about how much dust stars like this create before exploding in a supernova, and how much of that dust is large enough to survive the blast and go on to serve as building blocks of future stars and planets.

Space

Six of the most amazing space pictures from 2023

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Abell 370 is a distant collection of several hundred galaxies

Space

Weird cosmic clumping hints our understanding of the universe is wrong

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2M3CPXW Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. 12th Nov, 2022. X-37B orbital test vehicle concludes sixth successful mission. Orbital Test Vehicle-6 (OTV-6), the U.S. Space Force's unmanned, reusable spaceplane, successfully deorbited and landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on Nov. 12, 2022, at 05:22 a.m. The service module successfully separated from the OTV before landing, which is a necessary activity due to the aerodynamic forces experienced by the X-37B vehicle upon re-entry. In the coming weeks, the service module will be disposed of in accordance with best practices

Space

Space Force’s secretive space plane is making its highest flight yet

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