Award-winning Freelance Space Journalist. Formerly @Astro_Jonny on Twitter.
Words in The New York Times, BBC, Scientific American, New Scientist, Wired, and more. Sometimes on the the TV and radio.
| portfolio | https://authory.com/JonathanOCallaghan |
Beyond thrilled to share my latest feature for Scientific American, my little magnum opus on the Habitable Worlds Observatory – NASA's bold new telescope to hunt for alien life.
Are we alone? The journey to find out has just begun.
Enjoy!
My latest feature for New Scientist is on axions – "wonder particles" that could explain dark matter, dark energy, and more.
Bonus, it'll be the cover of the magazine next week, my fourth New Scientist cover of the year. So, give it a read!
The Cow
The Koala
The Finch
The Tasmanian Devil
These are mysterious space explosions we can't explain. Now astronomers have seen one of them doing something bizarre - flashing more than a dozen times. What's going on?
Story by me in Nature
New AI robot Mars chemist just dropped
Words by me in Nature
Last year NASA detected a monster quake on Mars, as big as all other known marsquakes combined.
Now scientists have ruled out a meteorite impact as the cause, pointing to unknown tectonic activity beneath the Martian surface.
Story by me in Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/monster-quake-hints-at-mysterious-source-within-mars/
In April's Starship test flight, the rocket failed to explode properly.
Its flight termination system didn't have enough oomph.
While no harm was done, the incident raised big concerns. Has SpaceX solved the issue?
Termination Shock, by me, in Aerospace America.
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/termination-shock/
Starship’s slow-motion destruction in April was a rare example of a rocket’s flight termination system failing to do its job adequately. Such a failure could put people on the ground at risk, and so, SpaceX must prove to FAA that it has a fix in hand before the agency permits the company to launch its next Starship. Jonathan O’Callaghan takes us inside the technology.
Two ice giant planets appear to have smashed into each other in a nearby solar system 1,800 years ago - forming a giant superheated donut seven times larger than our sun.
Just another day in space. Words by me in New Scientist.
NASA is set to launch Psyche tomorrow, a mission to a heavy-metal asteroid of the same name.
Is it the remnant core of a failed planet, with sheets of metal on its surface?
We're about to find out. Story by me in Supercluster.
https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/nasa-set-to-launch-mission-to-heavy-metal-asteroid
Inside our planet is a core made of metal that spins to give Earth its protective magnetic field. However, we can’t see it for ourselves. But an asteroid called 16 Psyche might be the next best thing — a suspected remnant core floating freely in space.
