Stefanie Waldek

Stefanie Waldek

Contributing writer

Space.com contributing writer Stefanie Waldek is a self-taught space nerd and aviation geek who is passionate about all things spaceflight and astronomy. With a background in travel and design journalism, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University, she specializes in the budding space tourism industry and Earth-based astrotourism. In her free time, you can find her watching rocket launches or looking up at the stars, wondering what is out there. Learn more about her work at www.stefaniewaldek.com.

Latest articles by Stefanie Waldek

An orange sun sets behind a wall of clouds as several american flags wave in the foreground.

These 2 US cities are the most vulnerable to solar storms, scientists say

By Stefanie Waldek published

Geomagnetic storm-induced blackouts may be looming.

The Sun
a large hazy venus shines three quarters illuminated, gasses crossing the surface as blurred stripes.

NASA just beamed a Missy Elliott song to Venus

By Stefanie Waldek published

"The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” traveled 158 million miles (254 million kilometers) to our neighbor.

Venus
an extreme close-up of a purple world. To the left, the entire image is shrouded in shadow.

The James Webb Space Telescope is studying an exoplanet's eternal day — and eternal night

By Stefanie Waldek published

A tidally locked gas giant experiences eternal sunshine on one side, and eternal darkness on the other.

James Webb Space Telescope
A black shallow hole in a grayish surface.

Newly discovered cave on the moon could house future lunar astronauts

By Stefanie Waldek published

The lava tube is likely one of many on the lunar surface.

The moon
A timelapse view of a drone flying in a circle, indoors.

Drone racing is helping train AI to autonomously drive spacecraft

By Stefanie Waldek published

ESA and the Delft University of Technology are training neural-network AI systems to race drones in preparation for complicated spacecraft maneuvers.

Tech
a cube-shaped spacecraft with two large wing-like solar panels in orbit above a reddish-orange planet

Europe's Mars sample return orbiter moving ahead despite NASA budget uncertainty

By Stefanie Waldek published

The European Space Agency's Earth Return Orbiter has passed its design review, which validates its technical details and moves the project onto manufacturing and testing.

Mars
a lumpy rough metallic rock

The early solar system was donut-shaped, meteorite study suggests

By Stefanie Waldek published

Researchers studying iron meteorites suggest that the early solar system took the shape of a donut, not a dartboard as previously thought.

Solar System
a bright yellow star against the blackness of space. bright pinpoints of light can be seen in the background

Once-in-a-lifetime star explosion, visible from Earth, could happen any day now

By Stefanie Waldek published

Binary star system T Coronae Borealis (T CrB) is about to go nova any day now. The recurrent nova explodes approximately every 79 or 80 years.

Stars
A view of the top of Io, a slight haze protrudes from the surface in one isolated location.

NASA's Juno probe reveals lava lakes across Jupiter's volcanic moon Io (image)

By Stefanie Waldek published

Infrared images showcase "fire-breathing" lakes all across the Jovian moon.

Jupiter
A rectangular image with black vertical rectangles at the bottle left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center of the image is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the Webb Telescope.

James Webb Space Telescope spies never-before-seen star behavior in distant nebula (video, photo)

By Stefanie Waldek published

A new James Webb Space Telescope image shows perfectly aligned protostellar outflows in the Serpens Nebula, supporting a long-running theory of stellar formation.

James Webb Space Telescope
a section of swirling world of gases of tans and browns and off whites with a giant storm of blood orange swirling in the top left.

Is Jupiter's Great Red Spot an impostor? Giant storm may not be the original one discovered 350 years ago

By Stefanie Waldek published

Astronomer Giovanni Cassini observed Jupiter's 'Permanent Spot' in 1665, but new research suggests it's a different vortex from today's Great Red Spot.

Jupiter
a giant blazing star hangs in the black of space, burning vibrant yellow and dark orange. A small planet sits to the right, just below the star's equator.

Could nearby stars have habitable exoplanets? NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory hopes to find out

By Stefanie Waldek published

Astronomers are using the Chandra X-ray Observatory to study stars' radiation and establish the feasibility of exoplanet habitability.

Exoplanets
artwork of voyager 1 spacecraft in black space background

Voyager 1 is back online! NASA's most distant spacecraft returns data from all 4 instruments

By Stefanie Waldek published

Following a technical error in November 2023, NASA's deep-space explorer has resumed full science operations.

Missions
The space station above earth shoots a laser to another satellite, which relays it to earth. along the laser are pictures of cats and dogs

Bark! Meow! Cluck! NASA uses lasers to beam pictures of pet dogs, cats and chickens to the ISS

By Stefanie Waldek published

NASA is testing how infrared light can transfer far more information than radio frequency communications.

International Space Station
An image of Mars captured on May 12, 2003, shows its southern ice cap.

Mars meteorites reveal clues about what lies within the Red Planet

By Stefanie Waldek published

Volcanic meteorites from Mars give scientists a glimpse into the planet's structure.

Mars
An image of blue swirlies on Jupiter.

Jupiter's raging gas cyclones may actually mirror Earth's oceans. Here's how

By Stefanie Waldek published

Jupiter and Earth's oceans have more in common than you might think.

Jupiter
a blue white icy cliff face towers over a snowy valley below.

Satellite data reveals Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than we thought

By Stefanie Waldek published

The ICEYE satellite constellation has given researchers a peek beneath the glacier, and it's not looking good.

Climate Change
Northern lights above the ocean.

Solar storm frenzy of May 2024 was strong enough to affect the deep sea

By Stefanie Waldek published

Ocean Networks Canada's (ONC) deep-sea observatories recorded disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field.

The Sun
A view of a fiery sun.

India's space agency has been carefully watching our sun's solar tantrums

By Stefanie Waldek published

The Indian Space Research Organization has released solar storm data from ground stations and spacecraft, including the Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter.

The Sun
flaming hot magma spews from a crack in the earth, jetting upward in a splash, and streaming down the right of the image over hard, black rock surface.

To better predict volcanic eruptions, you have to dig deep — very deep

By Stefanie Waldek published

New research suggests studying the state of magma in deep reservoirs can improve volcanic eruption predictions.

Earth
a swirling spiral galaxy enriches the blackness of space with shades of blue from stars shining in its arms, and hues of pink and orange near the center.

See this galaxy's bright center? It's home to a voracious supermassive black hole

By Stefanie Waldek published

To launch Black Hole Week, NASA released this new Hubble image of spiral galaxy NGC 4951.

Black Holes
satellite photo showing a dark-blue hole in antarctic sea ice

A Switzerland-size hole opened in Antarctica's sea ice in 2016-17. Now we know why

By Stefanie Waldek published

During the winters of 2016 and 2017, a hole the size of Switzerland opened in the middle of Antarctica's sea ice. And scientists just figured out how it came to be.

Earth
in the mid-right of the image, two three-paneled solar arrays span the image height, meeting in the center at a cubic-like spacecraft with two circular attachments. In the background on the right, starry space. On the left, the half-shadowed rusted-red planet Mars.

This spacecraft is headed to NASA's asteroid-crash aftermath — but first, it'll stop by Mars

By Stefanie Waldek published

During a gravity assist with Mars, Hera will study the moon Deimos.

Missions
a cylindrical spacecraft sits upright on the surface of the moon

Private moon lander will carry Nokia's 4G cell network to the lunar surface this year

By Stefanie Waldek published

Nokia is developing a LTE/4G communications system for the moon, and its first piece of the network might launch as soon as late this year.

Tech
A blue and white glowing view of the Crab Nebula. It looks like there's a ring of gassy material around a dot that's giving off a stream of gas itself.

Watch 2 gorgeous supernova remnants evolve over 20 years (timelapse video)

By Stefanie Waldek published

These supernova remnants are moving at extraordinary speeds only visible to us in long-term timelapses.

The Universe
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