Skip to Content
Advertisement
Astronomy

Spark of Science: Chiara Mingarelli

How stars and UFOs set one astrophysicist on her path.

Mingarelli_HERO

Chiara Mingarelli has a pretty sweet gig. As the Marie Curie Fellow at Caltech, Mingarelli gets to hunt for gravity waves down the hall from some of the luminaries in the field. She was there when the recent, historic detection of kilohertz-frequency gravity waves by the LIGO experiment was announced. And she is working on detecting nanohertz-frequency waves, using distant pulsars instead of Earth-bound lasers.

Featured Video

Long before she got to her current position, Mingarelli was a child in small-town Ontario, looking up at the sky. This is the story of how she got hooked on physics. You can add your own story at spark.nautil.us.

View Video

Advertisement

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Astronomy

Explore Astronomy

Check Out the Largest 3-D Map of the Universe

It spans over 11 billion years of cosmic history

April 17, 2026

The Best Photos of the Artemis II Mission

Humans have never taken photos of the moon like this

April 13, 2026

Two Supermassive Black Holes Are on a Cosmic Collision Course

Astronomers find a pair of super close, supermassive black holes for the first time

April 13, 2026

What Comes After Artemis II

Artemis II was one small step in another giant leap

April 10, 2026

The Mystery of Water on the Moon

Where it is, and how it got there

April 7, 2026