Lisa Grossman

Lisa Grossman

Astronomy Writer

Lisa Grossman is the astronomy writer for Science News. Previously she was a news editor at New Scientist, where she ran the physical sciences section of the magazine for three years. Before that, she spent three years at New Scientist as a reporter, covering space, physics and astronomy. She has a degree in astronomy from Cornell University and a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz. Lisa was a finalist for the AGU David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, and received the Institute of Physics/Science and Technology Facilities Council physics writing award and the AAS Solar Physics Division Popular Writing Award. She interned at Science News in 2009-2010.

All Stories by Lisa Grossman

  1. aerial photo of San Francisco at night
    Astronomy

    New data show how quickly light pollution is obscuring the night sky

    Tens of thousands of observations from citizen scientists spanning a decade show that the night sky is getting about 10 percent brighter every year.

  2. A chain of craters on Enceladus looks like a Saturnian snowman.
    Planetary Science

    Enceladus is blanketed in a thick layer of snow

    Pits on the Saturnian moon reveal the surprising depth of the satellite’s snow, suggesting its plume was more active in the past.

  3. The James Webb Space Telescope’s first image captured three “Green Pea” galaxies in the early universe (circled in green). The galaxies’ light has been stretched by the expansion of the universe, making them appear red.
    Astronomy

    The James Webb telescope found ‘Green Pea’ galaxies in the early universe

    The James Webb telescope spotted tiny “green” galaxies that might have helped trigger a dramatic cosmic makeover more than 13 billion years ago.

  4. A night photo of the Artemis I rocket launching
    Astronomy

    The James Webb Space Telescope wasn’t the only big space news in 2022

    DART crashed into an asteroid, Artemis went to the moon and we got a pic of our galaxy’s monstrous black hole. Space was a busy place this year.

  5. An illustration of exoplanet GJ 1214b and its star.
    Astronomy

    The James Webb telescope is getting glimpses of small, far-off planets

    Hints of one exoplanet atmosphere’s chemical makeup and the discovery of a planet orbiting another star are two of the telescope’s early successes.

  6. illustration of a planet spiraling into its star
    Astronomy

    The first planet found by the Kepler space telescope is doomed

    The exoplanet dubbed Kepler 1658b is spiraling toward its host star and will meet a fiery death in less than 3 million years.

  7. Regions of sky, shown as rectangles, observed by JWST, against a black backdrop
    Astronomy

    How the James Webb telescope’s glances back in time are reshaping cosmology

    The observatory has found dozens of galaxies from less than 550 million years after the Big Bang, suggesting galaxies formed faster than once thought.

  8. An illustration of a pair of compact stars merging (bright dots in the center) and emitting jets of radiation (green and purple beams)
    Astronomy

    A bizarre gamma-ray burst breaks the rules for these cosmic eruptions

    The 50-second gamma-ray burst is the first that unambiguously breaks the rule that long bursts usually come from supernovas.

  9. Carina nebula image taken by JWST's NIRCam camera
    Astronomy

    In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope brought us new views of the cosmos

    Science News looks back at some of the most stunning images from the James Webb telescope’s first year in space.

  10. A Black man looks out of an astronaut helmet with outer space in the background
    Space

    Artemis missions will usher in a new, more diverse crew of astronauts

    Space agencies are preparing to send the next generation of astronauts to the moon and beyond. Here’s how the next crews will be different from the last ones.

  11. An illustration of an active black hole with a jet of charged particles shooting out into space, a blazar
    Astronomy

    Here’s why some supermassive black holes blaze so brightly

    NASA’s IPXE X-ray satellite saw a telltale signature of shock waves propagating along a blazar’s high-speed jet, causing it to emit high-energy light.

  12. two researchers crouched on the ground in a field examining and collecting pieces of the Winchcombe meteorite
    Planetary Science

    The pristine Winchcombe meteorite suggests that Earth’s water came from asteroids

    Other meteorites have been recovered after being tracked from space to the ground, but never so quickly as the Winchcombe meteorite.