Ian O'Neill is a media relations specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. Prior to joining JPL, he served as editor for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific‘s Mercury magazine and Mercury Online and contributed articles to a number of other publications, including Space.com, Space.com, Live Science, HISTORY.com, Scientific American. Ian holds a Ph.D in solar physics and a master's degree in planetary and space physics.
Latest articles by Ian O'Neill

By Ian O'Neill Published
An astrophotographer spotted a beautifully-formed solar prominence that looks like a giant version of the famous Parisian landmark.

By Ian O'Neill Published
Astronomers have announced the discovery of a truly monstrous structure consisting of a ring of galaxies around 5 billion light-years across — and it defies cosmological theory.

By Ian O'Neill Published
On Tuesday (June 16), NASA's Cassini mission had an EXTREMELY close encounter with one of Saturn's cratered moons, Dione.

By Ian O'Neill Published
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama mentioned something curious in a tweet — it was a message about the cosmos.

By Ian O'Neill Published
Astronomers studying the globular star clusters orbiting the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) have stumbled upon a fascinating discovery — the clusters are too massive.

By Ian O'Neill Published
By tracking the phases of six exoplanets, astronomers have tracked their daily weather cycles for the first time.

By Ian O'Neill Published
Ever since NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrived in the vicinity of dwarf planet Ceres, the world has been abuzz with theories as to what those mysterious white spots may be.

By Ian O'Neill Published

By Ian O'Neill Published
The International Space Station is about receive perhaps its most important upgrade to date: a microgravity espresso maker!

By Ian O'Neill Published
As the European Rosetta spacecraft continues to explore Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it gradually gets closer to the sun, it's having to deal with some very inclement orbital weather.

By Ian O'Neill Published
It has long been assumed that the size of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy's core is intimately related to the number of stars that galaxy contains -- but it might not be that simple.

By Ian O'Neill Published
One of the least likely places you might think astronomers would learn about ancient supernovae is at the bottom of the ocean but scientists have done just that -- also dredging up a mystery.

By Ian O'Neill Published
After pointing the Allen Telescope Array at a newly-found exoplanet discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope, SETI reports there is no transmitting alien civilization. But the search continues.

By Ian O'Neill Published
The twin Voyager probes have been discovered ... in the year 3300 AD.

By Ian O'Neill Published
The Martian surface is covered with a diverse array of landscapes and features, but this is one of the weirdest: strange spider-like formations that cover the south polar region of Mars.

By Ian O'Neill Published

By Ian O'Neill Published
Just in time for the festive period, the Hubble Space Telescope has released a dazzling image of a globular star cluster filled with stellar glitter.
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