Rafi Letzter

Rafi Letzter

Contributor

Rafi wrote for Live Science from 2017 until 2021, when he became a technical writer for IBM Quantum. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of journalism. You can find his past science reporting at Inverse, Business Insider and Popular Science, and his past photojournalism on the Flash90 wire service and in the pages of The Courier Post of southern New Jersey.

Articles by: Rafi Letzter

Cassiopeia A, the remnant of a "stripped-envelope supernova," may have actually taken its form from two supernovas in quick succession.

Something huge ripped the skin off this star before it died

By Rafi Letzter published

Something pulled the outer layer of Cassiopeia A off before it detonated to form this gorgeous supernova. But what?

An illustration shows the collision of two neutron stars. Scientists had proposed that such collisions might have filled our solar system with gold, but new research casts doubt on that claim.

There's too much gold in the universe. No one knows where it came from.

By Rafi Letzter published

Something is showering gold across the universe. But no one knows what it is, and key theoretical explanations are falling apart

A NASA illustration shows the Pioneer 13 probes descending toward the clouds of Venus.

Did NASA detect a hint of life on Venus in 1978 and not realize it?

By Rafi Letzter published

What if scientists had started hunting for life on Venus in 1978?

Tracy Slatyer was searching for dark matter when she helped discover the Fermi bubbles, pictured here in an image combining visible light, X-rays and gamma rays.

Dark matter hunter who found unexpected, giant 'Fermi bubbles' wins $100,000 physics prize

By Rafi Letzter published

Tracy Slatyer, known for hunting dark matter in our galaxy and discovering evidence of an ancient Milky Way explosion, has won a $100,000 prize funded by tech billionaires.

A cross section of a small Aguas Zarcas fragment shows colorful clays that might include complex organic compounds.

Rainbow meteorite discovered in Costa Rica may hold building blocks of life

By Rafi Letzter last updated

A small, soft smacked into Costa Rica on April 23, 2019. And it carried dust older than our sun, as well as clues regarding how life formed on Earth.

Artist's illustration of 'Oumuamua, the first confirmed interstellar object ever spotted in our solar system.

Interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua could still be alien technology, new study hints

By Rafi Letzter published

The idea that interstellar object 'Oumuamua is a hydrogen iceberg has a flaw.

First ever double hurricane could hit the Gulf of Mexico

By Rafi Letzter published

There's no record of two hurricanes being in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. Next week, that could change.

This photograph shows the laser-ranging facility at the Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory in Greenbelt, Maryland trying to hit the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) with green laser light. For the first time, another facility in Grasse, France successfully bounced a laser (using infrared light) off the LRO's onboard mirror.

Astronomers bounced a laser off a spacecraft whirling around the moon

By Rafi Letzter published

That's one precise laser shot.

A prototype rover creeps through a lava tube in Spain’s Canary Island of Lanzarote, part of a training campaign to explore settings on Earth that could be similar to those on the moon and Mars.

Entire cities could fit inside the moon's monstrous lava tubes

By Rafi Letzter published

Vast lava tubes pock the surface of the moon and Mars, and could protect explorers from the elements. But first someone needs to explore them.

A photo shows Death Valley, California's Bad Water Basin.

Death Valley tops 130 F, setting possible global heat record

By Rafi Letzter published

California's Death Valley recorded what may be its hottest ever temperature on Sunday (Aug. 16) — a blazing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius).

Equipment at the ISOLDE proton-blasting laboratory where astatine was isolated and studied. ISOLDE is part of CERN, the European particle physics research collaboration.

Heavy atom spills its guts in decade-long experiment

By Rafi Letzter published

A new experiment on ultra-rare astatine could open the door to cancer treatments and new research into super-heavy atoms.

Light curves around a black hole's event horizon

Thousands of Earthlike 'blanets' might circle the Milky Way's central black hole

By Rafi Letzter published

Tens of thousands of planets like Earth and Neptune might orbit the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

A portion of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope's new image of the cosmic microwave background

Oldest surviving light reveals the universe's true age

By Rafi Letzter published

One of the most important controversies in physics remains unresolved after a major new study. But at least we have a new precise number for the universe's age.

On the left is Mirach's Ghost as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. On the right, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data reveals unprecedented detail of swirling gas in the same region.

Origin of 'Mirach's Ghost' perplexes black hole scientists

By Rafi Letzter published

Physicists are step closer to understanding where the largest black holes in the universe came from. But new data reveals even deeper mysteries around their creation.

National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) satellite data, processed at the University of Wisconsin, shows the unprecidented dust plume (yellow to red) approaching the United States June 26.

Dust plume bigger than Texas crashes into the US

By Rafi Letzter last updated

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) (L) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), vice chair and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are pictured speaking to the press in 2018.

Pentagon should release UFO report, Senate intelligence committee argues

By Rafi Letzter published

How much would a report like this really tell us?

Early data from the Planck collaboration maps microwaves across the sky.

Why some physicists really think there's a 'mirror universe' hiding in space-time

By Rafi Letzter published

What happens when you turn space-time upside-down?

In this illustration, a pulsar (PSR J0337-1715) is shown with two white dwarf companions. The green mesh illustrates the curvature of space-time caused by the different masses. (Size and distances of the three components are not to scale.)

Einstein's core idea about gravity just passed an extreme, whirling test in deep space

By Rafi Letzter published

Once again, physicists have confirmed one of Albert Einstein's core ideas about gravity and relativity — this time with the help of a neutron star flashing across space.

If Earth started over, would intelligent life evolve again?

An astronomer calculated that Earth's intelligent life is probably 'rare.' Here's what that means.

By Rafi Letzter published

A new paper used an advanced "Bayesian" model to show that the emergence of intelligent life on Earth was probably a lucky break.

An animation illustrates the process that might have formed the hole at the galaxy's center.

Ancient 'ring of fire' galaxy found glaring at Earth across space and time

By Rafi Letzter published

Eleven billion years ago, a hot, active, eyeball of a galaxy glared across space. It formed in a violent collision, and could help explain the Milky Way's spiral.

A Boeing image shows the X-37B in its capsule before launch.

Why a microwave-beam experiment will launch aboard the Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane

By Rafi Letzter published

There's a microwave power experiment heading to space Saturday (May 16) aboard the Air Force's secretive X-37B spaceplane. Researchers hope it could lead to a new global power source.

An image shows aerial views of a pit crater chain hiding a lava tube in New Mexico (top) and a similar formation on Mars (bottom).

These lava tubes could be the safest place for explorers to live on Mars

By Rafi Letzter published

The Martian surface is a radiation hot zone. But ancient lava tubes might offer explorers safety from the cosmic bombardment

A Chinese Aerospace Corporation image shows the Long March 5b's launch from Wenchang launch center May 5.

Massive piece of Chinese space junk slams uncontrolled into Earth's atmosphere

By Rafi Letzter published

The 19.6 ton (17,800 kilogram) body of a Chinese rocket slammed into the planet's atmosphere today (May 11). It was the biggest such incident since 1991.

Physicist Edward Witten proposed using a fleet of laser-launched probes, like Breakthrough Starshot, to hunt the mysteries gravity source known as "Planet 9."

Renowned string theorist proposes new way to hunt our solar system's mysterious 'Planet 9'

By Rafi Letzter published

A new paper by physicist Edward Witten proposes hunting Planet 9 using a fleet of laser-launched probes like Breakthrough Starshots'.

A map of the sky shows the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), a remnant of the period of the early universe when this lost dark matter might have existed.

A long-lost type of dark matter may resolve the biggest disagreement in physics

By Rafi Letzter published

Right now, key measurements of the universe's expansion are contradicting each other. A lost form of dark matter could help them agree.

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