Brandon Q. Morris
Brandon Q. Morris is a physicist and space specialist. He has long been concerned with space issues, both professionally and privately and while he wanted to become an astronaut, he had to stay on Earth for a variety of reasons. He is particularly fascinated by the “what if” and through his books he aims to share compelling hard science fiction stories that could actually happen, and someday may happen. Morris is the author of several best-selling science fiction novels, including The Enceladus Series.
Brandon is a proud member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the Mars Society.
Astrophysics
May
12
2022
In the early times of the universe, black holes in the centers of active galaxies grew much faster than today. Only in this way it can be explained that 500 to thousand million years after the big bang there were already such huge black holes. Today, however, things look different - the black holes at the centers are evolving in parallel with their host galaxies. When and why did this change occur? That's what a study led by three researchers from Italy's National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Trieste has found, published in the journal Nature. The work is…
Space
May
9
2022
Astronomers love analogies from the animal kingdom. For a fast rotating neutron star, which feeds on its life partner, they have coined the term "black widow", although neutron stars are of course neither black nor widows. The star from which these pulsars (which otherwise would quickly come to rest on an astronomical scale) draw fresh energy for their rotation is still alive. Normally, such systems - about two dozen are known in the Milky Way alone - are identified by the X-rays and gamma rays that the pulsars emit like celestial lighthouses. However, not every pulsar also radiates in…
Life
May
4
2022
Nowadays we know more than 5000 exoplanets. Among them are some that are similar in size to Earth, are also made of rock, and orbit their star in an area that astrobiologists call the habitable zone. Habitable here refers to life as we know it, which is based on water and carbon and therefore also requires liquid water on the surface. Which of these candidates should we look at first, for example with the new James Webb telescope, which will also be able to determine the atmospheric composition of distant worlds? Where are the chances of finding life the…
Space
Apr
26
2022
Our solar system is relatively unusual with its division into four rocky worlds on the inside and another four gas and ice planets on the outside. What it lacks, for example, is a so-called "Hot Jupiter": a gas giant the size of our Jupiter, which orbits very close to its parent star and thus heats up extremely strongly. Therefore, if you want to learn something about Hot Jupiters, you have to look into the distance. Such a specimen appears in many of the more than 5000 planetary systems catalogued so far. What do these types of planets have in…
Astrophysics
Apr
20
2022
A team of astronomers has observed a new type of stellar explosion - a micronova - using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). These outbursts occur on the surface of certain stars and consume an amount of stellar material equivalent to the mass of 3.5 billion Cheops pyramids in a few hours. In astronomical terms, this is still small - hence the name. Micronovae are much less energetic than the stellar explosions known as novae. Both types of explosions occur on white dwarfs. "Micronovae challenge our understanding of how thermonuclear explosions occur in stars.…
Enceladus
Apr
19
2022
Jupiter's moon Europa, like Saturn's moon Enceladus, is an important target for the search for extraterrestrial life. That a liquid, salty ocean exists beneath its ice crust seems clear since the visits of Voyager and Galileo. But to explore this body of water, visitors must first drill through at least 20 to 30 kilometers of ice. Or maybe not? At least that's what a new study based on data from the Greenland Ice Sheet, published in Nature Communications, suggests. The results could provide insights into the geophysical processes that led to the formation of Jupiter's moon. Riley Culberg, a…
Astrophysics
Apr
13
2022
Astronomers have known for a while that the centers of most galaxies are home to supermassive black holes. With ever-improving methods of investigation, they have been able to trace these giants far back into the past. They must have existed as early as 750 million years after the Big Bang. This raises one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy today: How could these supermassive black holes, which weigh millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, grow so large so quickly? Current theories hold that supermassive black holes begin their lives in the dust-shrouded cores of galaxies…
Space
Apr
11
2022
Neptune, the outermost planet of our solar system, does not belong to the ice giants with its neighbor Uranus for nothing. The enormous distance to our central star ensures that the temperature out there falls below minus 200 degrees Celsius (-238 °F). Exactly how warm it gets depends, of course, on its current position in orbit. However, distinct seasons are not really to be expected: Neptune has an almost circular orbit, so it only moves away from or comes close to the Sun minimally, and at the same time it stands on this orbit with a very low axial…