Brandon Specktor
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
Earth's crust is way, way older than we thought
By Brandon Specktor published
Earth's continents have been leaking nutrients into the ocean for at least 3.7 billion years, new research suggests.
Russia wants to build its own space station to replace the ISS, state officials say
By Brandon Specktor published
Russia is building modules for a new space station, which could potentially replace the International Space Station by the year 2025, officials said.
Spooky 'spiders on Mars' finally explained after two decades
By Brandon Specktor published
Enormous "spiders" cover the Martian south pole, and scientists finally have experimental evidence to show how they're created.
Astronomers see a ghostly 'radio jellyfish' rise from the dead in the southern sky
By Brandon Specktor published
Astronomers discovered a radio structure that looks like a gigantic jellyfish, though it only glows in certain wavelengths.
A 'lump' of dark matter may be ripping apart Taurus' face
By Brandon Specktor published
The Hyades — the closest star cluster to our sun — is being stretched by an invisible 'lump,' researchers say.
The moon has a tail, and Earth wears it like a scarf once a month
By Brandon Specktor published
The tail is invisible to the naked eye but appears on all-sky cameras during every new moon.
First-ever 'space hurricane' detected over the North Pole
By Brandon Specktor published
Astronomers detected the first-known 'space hurricane' raging over the North Pole for 8 hours in 2014, a new study found.
Mysterious stripes spotted over Russia in satellite images — and NASA is perplexed
By Brandon Specktor published
Scientists can't agree on why these hills in the Russian Arctic ripple with stripes.
Martian dust storms may spark electric purple glow
By Brandon Specktor published
Colliding dust particles on Mars probably produce static electricity, a new experiment reveals.
World's largest iceberg disintegrates into 'alphabet soup,' NASA photo shows
By Brandon Specktor published
The world's largest iceberg has disintegrated into an 'alphabet soup' of mini ice island, new NASA imagery shows.
Earth is about to lose its second moon, forever
By Brandon Specktor published
Minimoon SO 2020, a rocket booster that has been orbiting Earth for about 60 years, will drift off forever next month.
NASA finds 'Lost Galaxy' shining out of Virgo's bosom
By Brandon Specktor last updated
This hazy spiral galaxy is one of the largest in the Virgo cluster — a collection of more than 2,000 galaxies.
Humans could move to this floating asteroid belt colony in the next 15 years, astrophysicist says
By Brandon Specktor published
A new paper proposes building a 'megasatellite' of human habitats around the dwarf planet Ceres.
The planet is dying faster than we thought
By Brandon Specktor published
Humanity is barreling toward a "ghastly future" of mass extinctions, health crises and constant climate-induced disruptions to society.
CIA releases entire collection of UFO-related documents to truth-seeking website
By Brandon Specktor last updated
The CIA just turned over 2,700 pages of UFO-related material to The Black Vault, a free repository of UFO records online.
A mysterious 'wobble' is moving Mars' poles around
By Brandon Specktor published
Like a teetering top, Mars refuses to rotate on a straight axis.
How to watch the rare 'triple conjunction' of Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn tonight
By Brandon Specktor published
Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn will form a tight triangle in the sky this Sunday during a rare 'triple conjunction' event.
Largest canyon in the solar system revealed in stunning new images
By Brandon Specktor published
Mars' Valles Marineris is nearly 10 times as long as the Grand Canyon and three times as deep, but nobody knows how it formed.
This is what a supernova sounds like, according to NASA
By Brandon Specktor published
NASA's new data sonification project turns the universe's most extreme phenomena into sounds.
Jupiter and Saturn descend on world's tallest building in epic 'Great Conjunction' video
By Brandon Specktor published
A photographer filmed the "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn as the heavenly bodies passed by Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.
Here's what we learned about aliens in 2020
By Brandon Specktor published
From the best places to find them to what they might breathe, here are the newest clues we discovered about alien life.
Two strange blobs of X-ray energy are swirling out of the galaxy's center
By Brandon Specktor published
The eROSITA X-ray telescope just revealed two strange bubbles of X-ray energy, sitting smack-dab inside the Fermi Bubbles.
Epic time-lapse shows what the Milky Way will look like 400,000 years from now
By Brandon Specktor published
The Gaia space observatory just released its most detailed map of the universe yet, including the trajectories of hundreds of millions of stars.