Articles by: Charles Q. Choi

Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Space.com and Live Science. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica. Visit him at http://www.sciwriter.us

Articles by: Charles Q. Choi

Venus: The scorching second planet from the sun

By Charles Q. Choi, Chelsea Gohd published 29 September 22

Reference Planet Venus will have a flurry of spacecraft visit it in the next few years as scientists seek to learn more about the volcanic, lava-filled planet.

Artist's illustration of a half-rock, half-water world orbiting a red dwarf star.

New class of exoplanet! Half-rock, half-water worlds could be abodes for life

By Charles Q. Choi published 8 September 22

The find could boost the search for alien life.

Computer artwork of a meteor burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

How many meteorites hit Earth every year?

By Charles Q. Choi published 1 September 22

Earth is constantly showered by space rocks, but how many of these actually land on Earth's surface?

Cosmic impacts, such as the one that created this crater on Mars sometime between September 2016 and February 2019, increase the porosity of planetary crusts, creating cracks and fissures that could host water — and perhaps life.

Why pummeled planets may be promising abodes for alien life

By Charles Q. Choi published 30 August 22

Cosmic impacts can make planets and moons more porous than previously thought, potentially boosting their ability to host life, a new study finds.

Want to grow plants on Mars? High school student project finds 2 tricks for Red Planet

By Charles Q. Choi published 17 August 22

The soil and water of Mars are normally too harsh for crops, but research led by a then-high schooler finds that alfalfa plants and photosynthetic bacteria might help make conditions fit for farming.

dwarf planet ceres with crater in center

Radioactive heat in Ceres drove dwarf planet's fractured geology

By Charles Q. Choi published 12 August 22

A new model exploring the dwarf planet Ceres suggests radioactivity deep in the small world may have created criss-crossed geology at its surface.

Bizarre meteorite is 1st to show scars from pebble-shooting asteroid

By Charles Q. Choi published 11 August 22

A meteorite on Earth holds new evidence that asteroids do indeed mysteriously spit out pebbles, a new study finds.

Pluto against the black background of space. The planet is a mix of colors from dark blood-red to white and a dusting of yellow at the top. In the lower right side of the image, the large white expanse of the Tombaugh Regio takes the shape of a heart.

Pluto: Everything you need to know about the dwarf planet

By Charles Q. Choi, Scott Dutfield published 28 July 22

Reference Pluto was once considered the ninth planet in the solar system, it was demoted in 2006 to dwarf planet status. We explore this icy body in more detail here.

Jupiter against the black backdrop of space. Horizontal bands of orange, brown and beige cover the planet. Blue ribbons of light are auroras at the top of the planet and the Great Red Spot can be seen towards the lower right of the image as a rusty red circle.

Jupiter: A guide to the largest planet in the solar system

By Charles Q. Choi published 21 July 22

Reference Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system and has 79 moons. Learn more about the gas giant in our ultimate guide.

Scientists pinpoint Martian origin of 4.5 billion-year-old 'Black Beauty' meteorite

By Charles Q. Choi published 12 July 22

Scientists have found the Martian birthplace of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, potentially shedding light on the origins of Mars and other rocky worlds.

Artist's illustration of Mars against the backdrop of space.

Mars: Everything you need to know about the Red Planet

By Charles Q. Choi published 11 July 22

Reference Mars, the fourth planet from the sun is famed for its rusty red appearance. Here we explore the Red Planet in more detail and see why scientists find it so intriguing.

Alien super-Earths may get a habitability boost from hydrogen-rich atmospheres

By Charles Q. Choi published 27 June 22

A sample of the Miller Range 03346 meteorite, cut in half.

Scientists peer inside a Mars meteorite to check for signs of a habitable world

By Charles Q. Choi published 11 May 22

Liquid water once shaped the rock inside a meteorite from Mars, but likely did not support any microbial life, a new study finds.

In this conceptual image of meteoroids delivering nucleobases to ancient Earth, the nucleobases are represented by structural diagrams with hydrogen atoms as white spheres, carbon as black, nitrogen as blue and oxygen as red.

Meteorites could have brought all 5 genetic 'letters' of DNA to early Earth

By Charles Q. Choi published 26 April 22

New meteorite research suggests that cosmic impacts might have helped deliver vital ingredients of life to ancient Earth.

A group of stars is called a globular cluster. This globular cluster NGC 6380 is located approximately 35,000 light-years from Earth.

Stars: Facts about stellar formation, history and classification

By Charles Q. Choi, Ailsa Harvey published 21 April 22

Reference Learn how stars form, how stars and constellations are named, what happens when stars like our sun evolve, and ultimately, die.

A false-color image of Mercury taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft highlights the physical variation across the planet.

Mercury: The smallest and closest planet to the sun

By Charles Q. Choi, Scott Dutfield published 31 March 22

Reference Planet Mercury is the sun's nearest planetary neighbor. It has short years, long days, huge surface temperature fluctuations and really weird sunsets.

The most distant star yet seen, called Earendel, is indicated by an arrow in the inset of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope that captured the star from 12.9 billion light-years away using a gravitational lens.

Hubble Space Telescope spots most distant single star ever seen

By Charles Q. Choi published 30 March 22

The most distant single star seen yet dates back to less than 1 billion years after the universe's birth in the Big Bang, and may shed light on the earliest stars in the cosmos, a new study finds.

This NASA illustrations shows the massive gamma-ray Fermi bubbles towering over the Milky Way.

Giant radiation bubbles created by monster black hole feeding frenzy, new study suggests

By Charles Q. Choi published 9 March 22

Two giant bubbles of gamma rays and X-rays that erupted from the center of the Milky Way may stem from a supermassive black hole's feeding frenzy at the heart of the galaxy, a new study finds.

In this illustration, a low-power laser (red cone) on Earth could be used to shift the orbit (red lines) of a small probe (grey circle), or propel it at rapid speeds to Neptune and beyond.

Tiny laser-propelled spaceships could travel to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond

By Charles Q. Choi published 6 March 22

Miniature spaceships the size of cellphones could fly across the solar system using sails propelled by lasers, reaching distant destinations on very reasonable timescales.

An artist's depiction of a rocky, Earth-size exoplanet. We haven't found any planets exactly as habitable as Earth, but some planets might be even better for life than ours: superhabitable worlds.

Superhabitable planets: Alien worlds that may be more habitable than Earth

By Charles Q. Choi published 24 February 22

Two dozen so-called superhabitable alien worlds may be as good as or better than Earth for life as we know it.

Neptune: Facts about the eighth planet from the sun

By Charles Q. Choi published 21 February 22

Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun and was the first to be predicted before it was discovered.

An artist's depiction of the giant impact of Theia juxtaposed with the Earth and moon as they are today.

How did Earth get its water? Moon rocks suggest it might have been here all along.

By Charles Q. Choi published 16 February 22

The water that Earth has may have been here since the planet formed, and not delivered later by collisions with icy comets, a new study finds.

Nuclear fusion facility: JET interior with superimposed plasma

Fusion experiment smashes record for generating energy, takes us a step closer to a new source of power

By Charles Q. Choi published 10 February 22

The Joint European Torus fusion experiment in the U.K. has set a new record for generating energy.

An artist's impression of the white dwarf G29-38 accreting planetary material from a circumstellar debris disk. When the planetary material hits the white dwarf surface, a plasma is formed and cools via detectable X-ray emission.

'Zombie' star caught snacking on dead planet's remains

By Charles Q. Choi published 9 February 22

Distant X-rays may be the most direct evidence yet of the remains of a disintegrated planet colliding with the corpse of a star, a new study finds.

This NASA illustration depicts a solitary black hole in space, with its gravity warping the view of stars and galaxies in the background.

Rogue black hole spotted on its own for the first time

By Charles Q. Choi published 7 February 22

Astronomers may have for the first time detected and measured the mass of an isolated stellar-mass black hole, a new study finds.

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