headshot of Associate News Editor Christopher Crockett

Christopher Crockett

Associate News Editor

Christopher Crockett is an Associate News Editor. He was formerly the astronomy writer from 2014 to 2017, and he has a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.

All Stories by Christopher Crockett

  1. Planetary Science

    Comet ISON fell apart earlier than realized

    Comet ISON disintegrated at least eight hours before it grazed the surface of the sun last fall, new observations show.

  2. Astronomy

    Supernova rapidly creates dust between stars

    Astronomers watch a shell of dust form within weeks of a star’s explosion.

  3. Astronomy

    Rare planet circles just one of a pair of stars

    A newly discovered exoplanet orbits one star in a binary pair and shows that planets can form even with a second sun nearby.

  4. Astronomy

    Star-eating star spotted

    The first Thorne-Żytkow Object, a strange pair of stars where one engulfs the other, has been discovered.

  5. Astronomy

    Rare trio of supermassive black holes found

    Three supermassive black holes residing where two distant galaxies collide offer new clues about where to look for gravitational waves.

  6. Astronomy

    Milky Way galaxy’s dust clouds shown in 3-D map

    A new three-dimensional map of interstellar dust in the Milky Way wraps 180 degrees around the sky and extends over 16,000 light-years from Earth.

  7. Astronomy

    Galaxy seed found from 3 billion years after Big Bang

    A still-growing core of a galaxy in the early universe may help astronomers understand how massive elliptical galaxies get their start.

  8. Cosmology

    Dazzle or dust?

    The unpredictable glow of galactic dust could undermine the biggest cosmological discovery in years.

  9. Astronomy

    Supermassive black hole kills monster galaxy

    A supermassive black hole appears to have shut down star formation in an ancient, massive galaxy.

  10. Astronomy

    Stopping starlight may bring other Earths into focus

    Two new telescope concepts compete for NASA’s approval, in hopes of taking the first picture of a life-bearing exoplanet.

  11. Astronomy

    Hubble space telescope spies teenage galaxies

    New Hubble telescope images show ultraviolet radiation from stars born during the universe’s adolescent phase.

  12. Astronomy

    Galactic collision creates huge particle collider

    New images reveal a jet of particles shooting out of a collision among four galaxy clusters.