Doris Elin Urrutia

Doris Elin Urrutia

Doris is a science journalist and Space.com contributor. She received a B.A. in Sociology and Communications at Fordham University in New York City. Her first work was published in collaboration with London Mining Network, where her love of science writing was born. Her passion for astronomy started as a kid when she helped her sister build a model solar system in the Bronx. She got her first shot at astronomy writing as a Space.com editorial intern and continues to write about all things cosmic for the website. Doris has also written about microscopic plant life for Scientific American’s website and about whale calls for their print magazine. She has also written about ancient humans for Inverse, with stories ranging from how to recreate Pompeii’s cuisine to how to map the Polynesian expansion through genomics. She currently shares her home with two rabbits. Follow her on twitter at @salazar_elin.

Articles by: Doris Elin Urrutia

BetterCo. Full Moon Round Puzzle 500 Pieces

Holiday deal: This beautiful lunar jigsaw puzzle is just $10

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals This round lunar jigsaw puzzle is now on sale for nearly half off at Amazon.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Rocket Launcher for Kids

This rechargeable National Geographic Power Rocket for kids is 13% off for Cyber Monday

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals You can save 13% on this rechargeable National Geographic Power Rocket, which uses a rotors for both launch and landing, this Cyber Monday.

BBC Doctor Who Coding Kit

Save up to 40% in this Cyber Monday deal on the BBC Doctor Who HiFive Inventor Coding Kit

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals Searching for code learning Cyber Monday deals? Consider the BBC Doctor Who HiFive Inventor Coding Kit.

Terraforming Mars Board Game

Space-themed board game Terraforming Mars and its expansion sets are now on sale for Black Friday

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals Snag up a popular spacefaring game and five of its expansion boards now on sale and get savings as high as 33% this week ahead of Black Friday.

Apollo: A Collaborative Game Inspired by NASA Moon Missions

This NASA-inspired Apollo board game is now 50% off for Black Friday

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals This NASA-inspired board game is now 50% off at Target.

Lego BrickHeadz Star Wars The Mandalorian and The Child Building Kit

Save 40% on the Lego BrickHeadz Star Wars Building Kit featuring The Mandalorian and The Child

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals Fans of the "Star Wars" spinoff series "The Mandalorian" can now enjoy assembling their own Lego BrickHeadz display model versions of the show's title character and The Child (aka Baby Yoda).

PlayShifu Orboot Eart, an interactive augmented reality globe for kids.

Cyber Monday augmented reality globe deal: Save 31% on this interactive Orboot Earth by PlayShifu

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals This globe lets kids get introduced to our world with hundreds of interactive icons that come to life with a smart device.

Celestron - Cometron 7x50 Bincoulars - Beginner Astronomy Binoculars

Black Friday deal: Save 16% on these Celestron Cometron 7x50 binoculars for stargazing

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals Celestron's Cometron 7x50 Binocular is an affordable gift for the people in your life who are interested in night-sky gazing but who don't know how to start.

Get the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar for 20% off this Black Friday.

Black Friday deal: Save 20% on the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar at Walmart

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Deals Kids who are fans of The Mandalorian and the "Star Wars" universe can enjoy counting down the days to Christmas with their favorite characters.

DART team engineers lift and inspect the LICIACube cubesat after it arrived at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland in August 2021.

Meet LICIACube, the small but mighty spacecraft that will watch NASA's epic DART asteroid crash

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

The small LICIACube spacecraft will watch its robotic colleague, NASA's DART mission, smash into an asteroid and sending the footage back to Earth.

A NASA illustration of the Milky Way galaxy. On Oct. 18, 2021, the space agency announced that it had selected the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) telescope to move into development. COSI will study gamma-ray emissions in the Milky Way to chart the evolution of the galaxy.

NASA has selected new space telescope project to study Milky Way's evolution

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

NASA has picked a new telescope to head into space, where it will peer out in search of the most powerful light emissions made in the universe.

Artist's depictions of tThe eight asteroids that NASA's Lucy mission will visit.

Meet the 8 asteroids NASA's Lucy spacecraft will visit

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

The Lucy mission is scheduled to launch on Oct. 16, 2021, to study the unique Trojan asteroids, which orbit ahead of and behind the planet Jupiter.

A "shooting star" lights up the night sky during the 2021 Perseid meteor shower.

New 'Arids' meteor shower spotted from the Southern Hemisphere

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A new meteor shower began outbursting last week and astronomers expect its main peak to happen in the next few days.

This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 5728 130 million light-years from Earth, a spiral galaxy that resembles a celestial eye.

Hubble telescope spots celestial 'eye,' a galaxy with an incredibly active core

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A cosmic hurricane shows its 'eye' in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of AG Carinae, an unstable star that is on the brink of exploding.

900-year-old Chinese supernova mystery points to strange nebula

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

In the year 1181 AD, a new bright point of light as luminous as the planet Saturn appeared to Chinese and Japanese skygazers for a little more than six months before disappearing.

NGC 6717 is located about 20,000 light-years from Earth, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which is run by ESA and NASA.

Vibrant globular cluster sparkles in new Hubble telescope photo

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

The famous telescope peered into the constellation Sagittarius to view this gorgeous assortment of candy-colored stars.

This still image from Northwestern University's new simulation shows the center of a massive galaxy, where a supermassive black hole exists.

Watch a supermassive black hole fest in mesmerizing new simulation (video)

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

There's no consensus yet on how supermassive black holes form, but a new mesmerizing simulation is taking a crack at that question like never before.

Artist's illustration of Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander on the moon.

Intuitive Machines picks SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch its moon lander for NASA

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A Houston-based company that NASA selected to ferry upcoming lunar experiments to the moon has hired SpaceX to launch its lunar landing mission.

An artist's concept of 2MASS J22081363+2921215, a nearby brown dwarf.

Astronomers peer at 'layer cake' levels of a would-be star to understand super Jupiters

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Our cosmic block is full of neighbors that we know very little about, but scientists have come up with creative ways to get a peak at the layers of one particular type of planet.

An illustration of red giant stars.

Stellar pulses are transformed into a celestial symphony

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A new NASA video showcases the whirring symphony of stars in our cosmic neighborhood.

Despite its thick ice sheet, Antarctica is technically a desert.

A space laser is tracking subglacial lakes hidden in Antarctica

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A NASA satellite in space that shoots a laser beam down to Earth has spotted still more subsurface lakes sandwiched between Antarctica's land and ice.

saturn

Look up! Saturn shines bright, shows off rings as it reaches opposition.

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

Starting Monday (Aug. 2), you can find Saturn shining in the sky as part of a celestial phenomenon called opposition.

The SuperBIT balloon in flight, above NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, Texas, in June 2016.

Meet SuperBIT, the next-generation space telescope that rides above the clouds on a balloon

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

A new type of space telescope could soar high above Earth's clouds to view the universe in a more environmentally-friendly and upgradable way than current technologies.

In 1974, NASA's Pioneer 11 spacecraft viewed Jupiter from above its north pole.

Amateur astronomer discovers a tiny moon around Jupiter

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

An amateur astronomer has discovered a previously unknown moon around Jupiter after poring over old telescope images, a major first.

Special filters enabled a team of scientists, led by solar researcher Shaddia Habbal, to measure different temperatures in the sun's corona during total solar eclipses. The red colors show charged particles at 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (999,982 degrees Celsius), and the green colors show particles at double that temperature, 3.6 million degrees F (1,999,982 degrees C).

14 years of solar eclipse chasing (and counting): a team travels the world to study solar wind

By Doris Elin Urrutia published

The solar system is bathing in a sea of charged particles that emanate from the sun, and one research team spent 14 years chasing solar eclipses to learn more about this stellar spray.