Rafi Letzter
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.
Latest articles by Rafi Letzter
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There's a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe
By Rafi Letzter last updated
No one really knows what happens inside an atom.
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Physicists Just Solved a 35-Year-Old Mystery Hidden Inside Atomic Cores
By Rafi Letzter last updated
The quarks inside atoms move slower than the quarks inside free-floating protons and neutrons. But why?
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2,000 Atoms Exist in Two Places at Once in Unprecedented Quantum Experiment
By Rafi Letzter last updated
The new experiment demonstrated a bizarre quantum effect from the double-slit experiment at an unprecedented scale.
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The Higgs Boson Has a New Friend
By Rafi Letzter last updated
The Higgs boson appeared again at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and this time, it revealed something new and exciting about its behavior.
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Higgs boson possibly caught in act of never-before-seen transformation
By Rafi Letzter last updated
If the Higgs boson really is decaying into pairs of muons in the Large Hadron Collider, that's a big deal for particle physics.
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The Milky Way's quiet, introverted monster won't spin
By Rafi Letzter last updated
This supermassive black hole's spin has been measured for the first time, and it's surprisingly low.
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Telescope lasers could give humanity an edge in war against space junk
By Rafi Letzter published
Space junk is a growing problem. Better fight it with lasers.
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Monster antimatter particle slams into Antarctica
By Rafi Letzter published
The most remote particle detector on Earth has detected the most energetic antimatter neutrino ever, confirming a 51-year-old prediction.
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US Air Force says it will test bizarre 'hypersonic' weapon this month
By Rafi Letzter published
At some point in the next few weeks, the U.S. plans to fire an extreme, hypersonic weapon. The question remains: What's the point?
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Meteor explodes over Vermont with the force of 440 pounds of TNT
By Rafi Letzter published
If you live in Vermont and heard an explosion just before dinnertime Sunday (March 7), there's a good chance that was a shockwave from an incoming meteor exploding over the state.
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Planet 9 probably doesn't exist, new paper argues
By Rafi Letzter published
Does the solar system really have a big, dark ninth planet drifting somewhere far beyond the orbit of Neptune? A new paper argues that Planet 9 is a statistical mirage.
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Mystery of gamma radiation solved: Hidden cannibal star is just having dinner
By Rafi Letzter published
The mystery at the heart of an unexplained, bright point of gamma-ray light in the sky has been solved: a violent, whirling redback.
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Why Mars is having its busiest two weeks in 47 years
By Rafi Letzter published
It's a busy February for Mars, with three probes from three separate space agencies arriving at the red planet over the course of just nine days. Here's why.
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Seas will likely rise even faster than worst-case scenarios predicted by climate models
By Rafi Letzter published
Sea levels will probably rise faster than the most mainstream climate models predict, according to a new study.
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A giant black hole suddenly went dark, and no one knows why
By Rafi Letzter published
In 2018, one of the brightest X-ray lights in the sky went dark, and scientists still aren't sure why.
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Chinese researchers to send an 'uncrackable' quantum message to space
By Rafi Letzter published
It's now possible to send uncrackable quantum messages through thin air, and the people who figured out how to do it are getting ready to send the messages into space.
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'Sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system' discovered whirling through the Milky Way
By Rafi Letzter last updated
Ever ridden a teacup ride at a state fair? If so, you might have a small taste of life in a whirling, twirling sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system.
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Now-dead radio telescope finds bizarre venomous-spider star
By Rafi Letzter last updated
Data from the now-destroyed Arecibo radio telescope has revealed a bizarre new type of hybrid venomous spider star.
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An alien machine already visited us, Harvard astrophysicist still contends
By Rafi Letzter published
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has reignited a debate about whether alien life can explain an object that visited the solar system in 2017 in a scathing new book.
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We've already blown past the warming targets set by the Paris climate agreement, study finds
By Rafi Letzter published
A new study shows that due to pollution already released, Earth will eventually blow past Paris goals. But that doesn't mean all is lost.
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The Milky Way is probably full of dead civilizations
By Rafi Letzter last updated
If there are other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, they are probably much closer than we are to the galactic center, and fairly young.
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Mysterious asteroid the size of a dwarf planet is lurking in our solar system
By Rafi Letzter published
There's a giant asteroid somewhere out there in the solar system, and it hurled a big rock at Earth that left behind meteorites unlike any scientists had ever seen.
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Alien hunters detect mystery signal coming from the closest star system
By Rafi Letzter published
Astronomers hunting for radio signals from alien civilizations have reportedly detected an "intriguing signal" from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system to the sun.
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