Skip to Content
Advertisement
Astronomy

Spark of Science: Chiara Mingarelli

How stars and UFOs set one astrophysicist on her path.

11:24 AM CDT on April 22, 2016

Mingarelli_HERO

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.

Advertisement
View Video

Advertisement

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

Related Stories

50 Years Ago, NASA Unveiled its First Space Shuttle

And “Star Trek” fans named it

September 21, 2026

The Moon has a New Once-in-a-Century Crater

The lunar surface is more dynamic than you might think

September 18, 2026

The Crescent Nebula: A Gas Bubble Surrounding a Violently Dying Star

A light show that will get even more dramatic in time

September 16, 2026

Mercury Has Gotten Smaller Than We Thought

The first planet from the sun has been hiding its wrinkles

September 15, 2026

Did Venus Eat its Own Moon?

The mystery of why our sister planet is alone

September 14, 2026