Brandon has been a senior writer at Live Science since 2017, and was formerly a staff writer and editor at Reader's Digest magazine. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts. He enjoys writing most about space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe.
Latest articles by Brandon Specktor

By Brandon Specktor Published
New research calculates the odds that humans will contact a 'malicious' alien civilization that wants to invade our planet. Don't worry, the chances are incredibly small.

By Brandon Specktor Published
The near-Earth asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) will make a close approach to our planet on May 27, 2022, flying within about 2.5 million miles of Earth.

By Brandon Specktor Published
The universe may stop expanding in just 100 million years if dark energy decays over time, a new study suggests.

By Brandon Specktor Published
The U.S. government's UFO program, AATIP, was funding secret research into invisibility, wormholes, and antigravity, newly released documents reveal.

By Brandon Specktor Published
1,500 pages of UFO related research has been declassified by the US government following a FOIA request by The Sun

By Brandon Specktor Published
A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system

By Brandon Specktor Published
'Magnetic anomalies' may be shielding ice in the moon's pitch-black craters, new research suggests.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Scientists discovered the mechanism that causes electrons to 'downpour' into Earth's atmosphere.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Scientists found a remarkably stable 'black widow ' pulsar that could be used to help detect gravitational waves.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Two mild geomagnetic storms are expected to hit Earth on March 14 and 15 after a large coronal outburst, NOAA warns.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A new study shows what happens when the two largest objects in the universe collide.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A Hubble Space Telescope image shows a stunning triple galaxy merger in the constellation Cancer.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A new museum exhibit hopes to uncover the secrets behind the doodles, in-jokes and coded messages on a blackboard that Stephen Hawking kept for more than 35 years.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station snapped this picture of an ancient heart-shaped oasis near the Nile River in Egypt

By Brandon Specktor Published
The highest glacier on Mount Everest is losing ice at an alarming rate, new research finds.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Satellite data shows that Greenland’s ice sheet has lost enough water over 20 years to submerge the entire United States.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Scientists detected two ancient ranges of 'supermountains' that criss-crossed the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago — and may have jump-started animal evolution.

By Brandon Specktor Published
An extremely powerful solar storm pummeled our planet 9,200 years ago, leaving permanent scars on the ice buried deep below Greenland and Antarctica.

By Brandon Specktor Published
Astronomers have discovered a mysterious, flickering object in the Milky Way that belches enormous amounts of energy toward Earth three times an hour.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A collision with a Mars-size planet 4.5 billion years ago may have left a permanent impact on our planet's deep mantle.

By Brandon Specktor Published
The closer we look at the universe, the more beautiful and baffling it becomes. Here are the 10 most epic space structures discovered in 2021.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A bombshell UFO report, the "alien junk" in our solar system, and more new clues about extraterrestrial life.

By Brandon Specktor Published
A new pre-print study claims to have quantum entangled a tardigrade with two superconductor qubits, though experts are skeptical.
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