Adam Mann

Adam Mann

Space.com Contributor

Adam Mann is a journalist specializing in astronomy and physics stories. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. Follow him on Twitter @adamspacemann or visit his website at https://www.adamspacemann.com/.

Latest articles by Adam Mann

south pole wall view in purple
Astronomers discover South Pole Wall, a gigantic structure stretching 1.4 billion light-years across

By Adam Mann Published

Strands in the intergalactic web

Astronomy
In this Apollo 17 onboard photo, Mission Commander Eugene A. Cernan adjusts the U.S. flag deployed upon the Moon during the December 1972 lunar landing mission, which marked the last of NASA's Apollo Moon landings.
The Apollo Program: How NASA sent astronauts to the moon

By Adam Mann Published

An overview of the history and accomplishments of NASA's Apollo missions.

Apollo
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a huge complex of star-forming clouds and stellar clusters found in the constellation Cygnus. Viewers can easily see the constellation Cygnus (the swan) in the northern hemisphere’s summer sky. The constellation also commonly goes by the name of the Northern Cross.
Cygnus constellation: Facts about the swan

By Adam Mann Published

Honk if you love stars.

Constellations
Auriga is a constellation of stars shaped like a pentagon. The brightest is Capella, which is actually a group of four stars.
Auriga constellation: Facts about the charioteer

By Adam Mann Published

All about the constellation Auriga, the charioteer.

Constellations
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope: Getting a close-up look at our sun

By Adam Mann Published

Now we can stare directly at the sun.

Parker Solar Probe
Virgin Galactic's suborbital vehicle made its second flight to space on Feb. 22, 2019.
What's the difference between orbital and suborbital spaceflight?

By Adam Mann Published

How will you go to space today?

Space Exploration
alien world artist illustration
To find intelligent alien life, humans may need to start thinking like an extraterrestrial

By Adam Mann Published

Anthropologist reveals a potentially big flaw in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Search for Life
An artist's illustration of a plume from the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.
Bright star Betelgeuse might be harboring a deep, dark secret

By Adam Mann Published

A new model suggests that the star Betelgeuse committed an act of cannibalism.

Stars
Artist's rendering of the sun shining on Earth's surface.
What Is the Greenhouse Effect?

By Adam Mann Published

How planets trap heat like a greenhouse.

Climate Change
An artist's impression of a quasar. New measurements of the universe's expansion have relied on the gravitational lensing of light from six quasars.
No One Can Agree How Fast Universe Is Expanding. New Measure Makes Things Worse.

By Adam Mann Published

We just might need new physics to get out of this mess.

Astronomy
This image shows the location of fast radio bursts across the night sky.
Origin of Deep-Space Radio Flash Discovered, and It's Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

By Adam Mann Published

Mysterious ultra-fast pinpricks of radio energy keep lighting up the night sky and nobody knows why.

Astronomy
Artist's rendition of a binary neutron star merger.
Gravitational-Wave Discovery Reveals Spectacular Crash of Neutron Stars, the 2nd Known

By Adam Mann Published

For the second time ever, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has spotted two ultradense stellar remnants known as neutron stars violently crashing together.

Stars
Mars's larger moon, Phobos, is a cratered, asteroid-like object.
What Does It Take to Be a Moon?

By Adam Mann Published

When is a moon not a moon — and does it matter?

The moon
Wormholes have been proposed as one possible means of traveling through time.
Where Does the Concept of Time Travel Come From?

By Adam Mann Published

When did time travel stories first appear, and what makes them so popular?

Astronomy
the universe's largest object, The Hercules Corona Borealis great wall
Cosmic Record Holders: The 12 Biggest Objects in the Universe

By Adam Mann Published

Things that make you go whoa!

Astronomy
A Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched the company's first commercial mission, nicknamed It's Business Time, on Nov. 10, 2018 (Nov. 11 New Zealand Time) from a launch pad on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab's Electron Rocket

By Adam Mann Published

The tiny launcher for small satellites.

Technology
In an artist's concept, the Indian lander Vikram nears the lunar surface.
Why Is It So Hard to Land on the Moon?

By Adam Mann Published

Despite the fact that humans landed on the moon many times during the Apollo missions half a century ago, doing so remains a tough business.

The moon
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) used its coronagraph to capture this image of a coronal mass ejection leaving the sun and moving into space.
What Is a Coronagraph?

By Adam Mann Published

What's hidden in the light?

The Sun
The Pillars of Creation are towering formations of cosmic gas and dust that lie in the center of the Eagle Nebula. A research team in Japan just discovered Giant Elephant Trunks that are much larger than these pillars.
Meet the 'Giant Elephant Trunks,' Mysterious Cosmic Structures 10 Times Bigger Than the 'Pillars of Creation'

By Adam Mann Published

Astronomers have spotted enormous column-shaped structures called Giant Elephant's Trunks in the galaxy

Stars
An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud taken with a ground-based telescope. The inset image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and shows a galaxy cluster teeming with variable Cepheids, a class of stars that flicker regularly. Using this pulsation rate, scientists have calculated the universe's expansion rate, but that number doesn't match with values derived from other cosmic phenomena, such as the echo of the Big Bang known as the cosmic microwave background radiation.
One Number Shows Something Is Fundamentally Wrong with Our Conception of the Universe

By Adam Mann Published

Here's what's going on with the discrepancies in cosmic expansion measurements.

Astronomy
conceptual drawing of a spaceship on alien world
Scientists Are Building a Real-Life Version of the Starship Enterprise's Life Scanner

By Adam Mann Published

A novel method relying on biochemistry could provide an unambiguous signal of life on other worlds.

Technology
This artist's conception shows a solar sail high above the Earth.
What Is a Solar Sail?

By Adam Mann Published

Solar sails traverse the oceans of space.

Technology
An artist's representation of the interlocking magnetic fields of the skyrmion.
What Are Skyrmions?

By Adam Mann Published

Skyrmions are simple. They're just itty-bitty nano-magnetic vortices.

Earth
Stratolaunch's rocket carrier plane, the largest aircraft ever built, takes off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California during its first test flight on April 13, 2019.
Stratolaunch Systems: Building the World's Largest Airplane

By Adam Mann Published

Stratolaunch is the builder of the world's first megaplane.

Launches & Spacecraft
One of the big questions lingering about our universe is why there is so much more matter than antimatter.
The Mystery of Antimatter

By Adam Mann Published

What's the matter with antimatter?

Astronomy
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