News Archive / Author: Laurel Kornfeld
Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne University’s Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazine’s guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.
Articles By Laurel Kornfeld
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New class of exoplanets identified in search for extraterrestrial life
September 5th, 2021More than 25 years after the discovery of the first exoplanets, scientists have identified a new subclass of planets that are hot, have large oceans and thick hydrogen atmospheres, and may be habitable for microbial life.
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NASA seeks volunteers for Mars simulation
August 18th, 2021NASA is seeking a crew of four volunteers for a year-long Mars simulation starting in the fall of 2022, one of several year-long simulations of life on the Red Planet organized by the agency's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.
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Videos simulate Pluto, Charon flyby; follow up mission proposed
August 1st, 2021NASA's New Horizons team released new movies simulating the spacecraft's 2015 flight over Pluto and its large moon Charon to mark the sixth anniversary of the encounter on July 14, 2015.
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Finding life on Europa requires drilling to its subsurface ocean
July 24th, 2021A future mission seeking signs of life on Jupiter's moon Europa will likely require drilling into its global subsurface ocean, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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Isotope of carbon found in exoplanet’s atmosphere
July 17th, 2021An international team of scientists has detected isotopes of carbon in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time ever, a discovery noted in the journal Nature.
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Surface, geology of Pluto studied via opposition observations
July 4th, 2021Six years after the New Horizons spacecraft returned close-up images of Pluto, researchers are teasing out more information about its geology and surface.
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Scientists trace meteor showers back to long-period comets
June 19th, 2021Scientists traced up to 15 lesser-known meteor showers through which Earth travels annually to long-period comets with orbits that take up to 4,000 years.
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Titan sample return mission being explored by NASA engineers
May 30th, 2021Funded by a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program grant, scientists are exploring a possible mission to return samples from Saturn's moon Titan.
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Exoplanets and their characterization the focus of STScl workshop
May 11th, 2021The various methods used over the last 25 years to discover exoplanets and the science of categorizing the many types of exoplanets that have been found was the focus of an April 19 workshop for science writers sponsored by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
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New Horizons spacecraft is now 50 AU from the Sun
April 22nd, 2021NASA's New Horizons spacecraft achieved a major milestone on Saturday, April 17, when it reached a distance of 50 AU from the Sun.
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Science journalist outlines challenges of settling the Moon and Mars
April 16th, 2021Human settlement of the Moon and Mars will require overcoming numerous challenges, including living in low gravity and protecting people from radiation.
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Mars and Titan: Two very different potentially habitable worlds
March 23rd, 2021Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan are at the forefront of the search for habitable solar system worlds, but they are very different from one another in terms of the presence of liquid, temperature variations, and the presence of organic compounds, planetary scientist Vincent Chevrier of the University of Arkansas noted in a March 12 online […]
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Hubble Space Telescope discoveries highlighted by astronomer
March 14th, 2021During its 31 years of activity, the Hubble Space Telescope has been "one of the most successful scientific experiments in history," used to research numerous fields of astronomy ranging from cosmology and the expansion of the universe to the characterization of exoplanets, said astronomer Tom Brown of the Space Telescope Science Institute in a March 2 online presentation.
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Various icy compounds make up Pluto’s atmospheric haze
February 8th, 2021Pluto's famous blue atmospheric haze likely formed differently from the hazes surrounding Saturn's moon Titan and Neptune's moon Triton, study finds.
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Amount of water on the Moon varies by location and time of day
February 6th, 2021Two Earth-based studies confirm water molecules are present on the Moon, but amounts vary depending on location and time of day, Casey Honniball of NASA.
