The Universe our eyes cannot see, and other stories.
Some of the most interesting things in the Universe are invisible to our eyes. Neutrinos, dark matter, distant stellar remnants and other elusive messengers can tell us stories about places and times we could never observe directly.
Here I collect some of the ways I talk about science outside the usual academic setting — from media appearances to stories and explanations about the questions that keep me curious.
Some stars don't simply die quietly. In the extreme environments inside stars, particles that almost never interact with matter can carry information about what is happening deep within them.
Could these ghostly particles reveal stars with a surprisingly violent history — including stars that have swallowed their companions?
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Every second, enormous numbers of nearly invisible particles pass through your body. They come from violent astrophysical events, from the Sun, and from processes happening throughout our own galaxy.
By studying where these particles come from, scientists can begin to map an otherwise invisible part of the Universe.
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Some of the stars whose deaths we want to understand disappeared long before Earth existed. Their light is gone, but other messengers may still be carrying traces of what happened.
With increasingly sensitive detectors, we may eventually be able to reconstruct stories from stars that died billions of years ago.
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Why would anyone put a scientific experiment deep underground when the interesting things seem to be happening in space?
I'm writing this one soon.
Story coming soon