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Webb telescope captures images, insight from one of Milky Way’s most extreme environments

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 20:44:04 +0000

Webb telescope captures images, insight from one of Milky Way’s most extreme environments Daniel William… Wed, 04/02/2025 - 14:44

Daniel Strain

An image of the Milky Way Galaxy captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope, with an inset showing a detailed image of Sagittarius C taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford)

Sagittarius C is one of the most extreme environments in the Milky Way Galaxy. This cloudy region of space sits about 200 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Here, a massive and dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust has collapsed on itself over millions of years to form thousands of new stars.

In a new study, a team of scientists used observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study Sagittarius C in unprecedented detail. The research was led by ��Vlog�ƽ�� astrophysicist John Bally, Samuel Crowe at the University of Virginia, Rubén Fedriani at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada and their colleagues

The findings could help solve a long-running mystery about the innermost stretches of the galaxy, or what scientists call the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ): The region hosts high densities of interstellar gas. So why are fewer new stars born here than scientists once predicted?

The researchers discovered that powerful magnetic field lines seem to be threading through Sagittarius C, forming long and bright filaments of hot hydrogen gas that look a little like spaghetti noodles—a phenomenon that could slow down the pace of star formation in the surrounding gas.

“It’s in a part of the galaxy with the highest density of stars and massive, dense clouds of hydrogen, helium and organic molecules” said Bally, professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��. “It’s one of the closest regions we know of that has extreme conditions similar to those in the young universe.”

He and his colleagues published their findings April 2 in The Astrophysical Journal. The research is part of an observation campaign proposed and led by Crowe, a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia who was recently named a Rhodes Scholar.

And, Crowe noted, the Webb telescope’s startling images show Sagittarius C as it’s never been seen before.

“Because of these magnetic fields, Sagittarius C has a fundamentally different shape, a different look than any other star forming region in the galaxy away from the galactic center,” Crowe said.

This image of Sagittarius C from the Webb telescope reveals several bands of plasma, which seem to have been formed by strong magnetic fields. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford)

Stellar nurseries

The research sheds light on the violent births and deaths of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Stars tend to form within what scientists call “molecular clouds,” or regions of space containing dense clouds of gas and dust. The closest such stellar nursery to Earth lies in the Orion Nebula, just below Orion’s belt. There, molecular clouds have collapsed over millions of years, forming a cluster of new stars.

Such active sites of star formation also spell their own demise. As new stars grow, they begin to emit vast amounts of radiation into space. That radiation, in turn, blows away the surrounding cloud, stripping the region of the matter it needs to build more new stars.

“Even the sun, we think, formed in a massive cluster like this,” Bally said. “Over billions of years, all of our sibling stars have drifted away.”

In a separate study published today in the same journal, Crowe and his colleagues, including Bally, dove into the growing “protostars” forming in Sagittarius. Their data reveal a detailed picture of how these young stars are ejecting radiation and blowing away the gas and dust around them.

Magnetic fields

In the study led by Bally, the researchers explored Sagittarius C’s unusual appearance. Bally explained that while the Orion Nebula looks mostly smooth, Sagittarius C is anything but. Weaving in and out of this region are dozens of bright filaments, some several light-years long. These filaments are made up of plasma, a hot gas of charged particles.

“We were definitely not expecting those filaments,” said Rubén Fedriani, a co-author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain. “It was a completely serendipitous discovery.”

Bally noted that the secret to Sagittarius C’s filaments, and the nature of its star formation, likely comes down to magnetic fields.

A supermassive black hole with a mass about four million times greater than our sun sits at the center of the galaxy. The motion of gas swirling around this behemoth can stretch and amplify the surrounding magnetic fields. Those fields, in turn, shape the plasma in Sagittarius C.

Bally suspects that the Orion Nebula looks much smoother because it resides within a much weaker magnetic environment.

Scientists, he added, have long known that the galaxy’s innermost regions are an important birthplace for new stars. But some calculations have suggested that the region should be producing a lot more young stars than observed. In the CMZ, magnetic forces may be strong enough to resist the gravitational collapse of molecular clouds, limiting the rate of new star formation.

Regardless, Sagittarius C’s own time may be drawing to a close. The region’s stars have blown away much of its molecular cloud already, and that nursery could disappear entirely in a few hundred thousand years.

“It’s almost the end of the story,” Bally said.

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 CU ��Vlog�ƽ��-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� on LinkedIn

In new images, scientists have gotten the closest look yet at Sagittarius C—a “stellar nursery” where clouds of gas and dust have collapsed to form thousands of new stars.

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Martian dust could pose health risks to future astronauts

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 17:09:15 +0000

Martian dust could pose health risks to future astronauts Daniel William… Mon, 03/31/2025 - 11:09

Daniel Strain

NASA's Curiosity rover reveals the dusty landscape of Mars in this selfie. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Don’t breathe in the dust on Mars.

That’s the takeaway from new research from a team of scientists, including researchers from the ��Vlog�ƽ��. The findings suggests that long-term exposure to Martian dust could create a host of health problems for future astronauts—leading to chronic respiratory problems, thyroid disease and more.

The study, published in the journal GeoHealth, is the first to take a comprehensive look at the chemical ingredients that make up Martian dust, and their possible impacts on human health. It was undertaken by a team from the worlds of medicine, geology and aerospace engineering.

“This isn't the most dangerous part about going to Mars,” said Justin Wang, lead author of the study and a student in the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “But dust is a solvable problem, and it’s worth putting in the effort to develop Mars-focused technologies for preventing these health problems in the first place.”

Justin Wang (Credit: Justin Wang)

Justin Wang, left, and Brian Hynek, right, at Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica. (Credit: Justin Wang)

A dust devil swirls on the surface of Mars as seen from space. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

Wang, a CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� alumnus, noted that Apollo era astronauts experienced runny eyes and irritated throats after inhaling dust from the moon. Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt likened the symptoms to hay fever.

But scientists know a lot less about the potential harms of Martian dust. To begin to answer that question, Wang and his colleagues drew on data from rovers on Mars and even Martian meteorites to better understand what makes up the planet’s dust. The group discovered a “laundry list” of chemical compounds that could be dangerous for people—at least when inhaled in large quantities and over long periods of time.

They include minerals rich in silicates and iron oxides, metals like beryllium and arsenic and a particularly nasty class of compounds called perchlorates.

In many cases, those ingredients are present in only trace amounts in Mars dust. But the first human explorers on Mars may spend around a year and a half on the surface, increasing their exposure, said study co-author Brian Hynek.

“You’re going to get dust on your spacesuits, and you’re going to have to deal with regular dust storms,” said Hynek, a geologist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��. “We really need to characterize this dust so that we know what the hazards are.”

Into the bloodstream

One thing is clear, he added: Mars is a dusty place.

Much of the planet is covered in a thick layer of dust rich in tiny particles of iron, which gives the planet its famous red color. Swirling dust storms are common and, in some cases, can engulf the entire globe.

“We think there could be 10 meters of dust sitting on top of the bigger volcanoes,” said Hynek, a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences. “If you tried to land a spacecraft there, you’re going to just sink into the dust.”

Wang found his own way to Martian dust through a unique academic path. He started medical school after earning bachelor’s degrees from CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� in astronomy and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, followed by a master’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences. He currently serves in the Navy through its Health Professions Scholarship Program.

He noted that the biggest problem with Martian dust comes down to its size. Estimates suggest that the average size of dust grains on Mars may be as little as 3 micrometers across, or roughly one-ten-thousandth of an inch.

“That’s smaller than what the mucus in our lungs can expel,” Wang said. “So after we inhale Martian dust, a lot of it could remain in our lungs and be absorbed into our blood stream.”

An ounce of prevention

In the current study, Wang and several of his fellow medical students at USC scoured research papers to unearth the potential toxicological effects of the ingredients in Martian dust.

Some of what they found resembled common health problems on Earth. Dust on Mars, for example, contains large amounts of the compound silica, which is abundant in minerals on our own planet. People who inhale a lot of silica, such as glass blowers, can develop a condition known as silicosis. Their lung tissue becomes scarred, making it hard to breath—symptoms similar to the “black lung” disease that coal miners often contract. Currently, there is no cure for silicosis.

In other cases, the potential health consequences are much less well-known.

Martian dust carries large quantities of highly oxidizing compounds called perchlorates, which are made up of one chlorine and multiple oxygen atoms. Perchlorates are rare on Earth, but some evidence suggests that they can interfere with human thyroid function, leading to severe anemia. Even inhaling a few milligrams of perchlorates in Martian dust could be dangerous for astronauts.

Wang noted that the best time to prepare for the health risks of Martian dust is before humans ever make it to the planet. Iodine supplements, for example, would boost astronauts’ thyroid function, potentially counteracting the toll of perchlorates—although taking too much iodine can also, paradoxically, lead to thyroid disease. Filters specifically designed to screen out Martian dust could also help to keep the air in living spaces clean.

“Prevention is key. We tell everyone to go see their primary care provider to check your cholesterol before it gives you a heart attack,” Wang said. “The best thing we can do on Mars is make sure the astronauts aren’t exposed to dust in the first place.”

Co-authors of the current study include USC medical students Jeremy Rosenbaum, Ajay Prasad and Robert Raad; Esther Putnam, former graduate student in aerospace engineering sciences at CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� now at SpaceX; Andrea Harrington at the NASA Johnson Space Center; and Haig Aintablian, director of the Space Medicine Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, also affiliated with SpaceX.

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 CU ��Vlog�ƽ��-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� on LinkedIn

Inhaling dust particles from the Red Planet over long periods of time could put humans at risk of developing respiratory issues, thyroid disease and other health problems.

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Aerospace engineers to study motion sickness in space

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 17:15:43 +0000

Aerospace engineers to study motion sickness in space Daniel William… Mon, 03/24/2025 - 11:15

Daniel Strain

Fram2 astronauts Rabea Rogge and Jannicke Mikkelsen train for their upcoming space mission. (Credit: Fram2)

Don’t tell Neil Armstrong, but giant leaps for mankind may leave astronauts feeling a little queasy.

In a new experiment, aerospace engineers at the ��Vlog�ƽ�� will work with astronauts to study how people experience motion sickness when they travel to space—with an eye toward reducing these sometimes debilitating symptoms.

The research is part of the first-of-its-kind Fram2 mission, a human spaceflight mission that will orbit Earth from above its poles to explore these regions in new ways. The mission’s four-person crew will spend 3-5 days on-orbit aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. It’s targeted to launch March 31 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.

Torin Clark, associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��, explained that motion sickness in space is a common problem—although not necessarily one that many early astronauts talked about. An estimated 60-80% of space explorers have experienced at least some nausea during their first few days away from Earth. Astronaut Frank Borman, for example, vomited less than 24 hours into the Apollo 8 mission to the moon, creating a mess for him and his crewmates to clean up.

As the space tourism industry ramps up, those bouts of queasiness could become a more urgent issue.

Torin Clark

“In the past, most astronauts have been carefully selected by NASA, including many military pilots,” said Clark, who’s leading the motion sickness experiment for CU ��Vlog�ƽ��. “We don’t know much about how the general public will respond to these gravity transitions.”

Clark and his colleagues simulate those dynamics in experiments on the CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� campus. The researchers, for example, spin volunteers in circles on a centrifuge machine the size of a room. They also put test subjects in a device called a “sled” that slides back and forth to mimic how a space capsule might bob in the ocean upon its return to Earth.

The Fram2 mission represents an opportunity to explore motion sickness in a real space environment. The mission gets its name from the Fram ship, which was built in the late 1800s and helped to carry early Norwegian explorers like Roald Amundsen and Otto Sverdrup to the planet’s polar regions. The Fram2 crew consists of Mission Commander Chun Wang, Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Mission Pilot Rabea Rogge, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips.

Throughout the mission, the crew members will perform a series of exercises at regular intervals. They will tilt their heads side to side and forward and back four times, motions that can stimulate symptoms of motion sickness. The crew will then fill out surveys, which Clark and his colleagues will analyze back on Earth to gauge how motion sickness evolves as humans spend time in space.

“We want to quantify the dynamics of space motion sickness: When does it start? How soon does it go back down?” Clark said. “We also want to understand how astronauts experience motion sickness when they come back to Earth because some research suggests that it might be worse than in space.”

Clark led a similar experiment during the Polaris Dawn mission, which launched last year with a four-person crew, including CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� alumna Sarah Gillis. Eventually, Clark and his colleagues hope to inform strategies for preventing motion sickness in space. That might include improved procedures for administering anti-nausea medications or training exercises that astronauts can do on the ground to prepare for the rigors of space.

“This issue may not be as big of a deal for going to Mars because symptoms will dissipate over long-duration missions,” Clark said. “But for shorter, commercial missions, it can make people feel pretty crummy.”

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 CU ��Vlog�ƽ��-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� on LinkedIn

The historic Fram2 mission will explore how astronauts get motion sickness and what they can do about it.

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CUriosity: Can humans handle the stress of traveling to Mars?

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 19:47:49 +0000

CUriosity: Can humans handle the stress of traveling to Mars? Daniel William… Wed, 03/19/2025 - 13:47

Daniel Strain

In CUriosity, experts across the CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� campus answer pressing questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

This week, Katya Arquilla, assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, looks into the question: “Can humans handle the stress of traveling to Mars?”

NASA astronaut Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station in October 2024. (Credit: NASA)

Previously in CUriosity

What causes the runner’s high?

Or read more CUriosity stories here

Editor's note: This article, originally published on Nov. 13, 2024, was updated to reflect the safe return of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth.

On March 18, 2025, a space capsule carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams splashed down in the waters off the coast of Florida. The event marked the end of the duo's 9-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

It was a little longer than they had planned. NASA had originally intended for the astronauts to spend only a week in space, but technical issues befell the Boeing Starliner space capsule Wilmore and Williams had ridden on.

If spending nine months on the ISS, which measures just 5,000 square feet, sounds like a recipe for frayed nerves, it may very well be. That’s according to Arquilla, an engineer who has studied how long space journeys can affect the mental health of humans.

“On long-duration space missions, there are many stressors that create the potential for negative mental health effects,” she said. “From data taken in research facilities in extreme environments on Earth, like Antarctica, we have seen symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress.”

A future mission to Mars, however, could be a lot more than eight months, potentially as much as three years. Which raises the question: Can humans handle that much time in space?

Arquilla thinks so, but there are caveats.

“It will be a big challenge,” she said. “There’s a lot we don’t know because we haven’t sent people to Mars before. They won’t be able to look down and see the Earth the way they can on the International Space Station.”

In previous research, Arquilla and her colleagues explored the mental health consequences of that kind of isolation through an unlikely event here on Earth—the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, millions of Americans were suddenly cooped up in their homes with the threat of a major disease hanging over their heads. The researchers conducted a survey and observed that people with military training or other experience in stressful environments tended to be more productive during the pandemic than others. But those experienced individuals didn’t appear to maintain their mental health better than less experienced people.

Katya Arquilla

Arquilla noted that simply being aware of your own body, and knowing when stress sets in, can help. She has partnered with Laura Devendorf, a researcher at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��’s ATLAS Institute, to assist people in doing that kind of monitoring. The team integrated sensors into comfortable textiles that track electrocardiogram (ECG) signals coming from wearers’ hearts.

“Maybe I'm an astronaut on a mission and I'm tracking my own signals, and I see that my heartrate starts to go up,” Arquilla said. “I could decide based on that that I should take a break for a couple of hours.”

This research won’t just help astronauts. Arquilla is also exploring how similar technologies could give people on the ground tools to detect and manage symptoms of mental health changes in high-stress environments. That might include wilderness expeditions, remote research facilities and military deployments.

She’s glad to see people talking more about mental health, both on Earth and in space.

“We all, after the pandemic, understand the importance of mental health a lot more than we did maybe 10 years ago,” she said. “Being able to recognize that it's okay to not feel at 100% all the time, and being able to give people the tools they need to articulate what is wrong, is really important.”

As humans spend longer and longer in space, the mental health of astronauts will become increasingly important, says aerospace engineer Katya Arquilla. Her research could help people in orbit and on the ground.

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Advancing real-time data compression for supercomputer research

Megan Maneval — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 19:31:16 +0000

Advancing real-time data compression for supercomputer research Megan Maneval Mon, 03/17/2025 - 13:31

Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

Alireza Doostan is leading a $1.2 million effort for real-time data compression for supercomputer research.

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LASP: Every planet and beyond

Megan Maneval — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 14:24:54 +0000

LASP: Every planet and beyond Megan Maneval Mon, 03/10/2025 - 08:24

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft just whipped around Mars carrying the LASP-built SUDA instrument. When it arrives at its destination in 2030, it won’t be the first time a LASP instrument has been to Jupiter. In fact, LASP instruments have been to every planet in our solar system and beyond.

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5 upcoming trips to the moon and how CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� scientists are involved

Daniel William Strain — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 17:49:24 +0000

5 upcoming trips to the moon and how CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� scientists are involved Daniel William… Tue, 03/04/2025 - 10:49

Daniel Strain

Selfie taken by "Athena," a lunar lander built by the company Intuitive Machines, which launched for the moon Feb. 26. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)

The next few years will be a busy time for the CU ��Vlog�ƽ��’s “lunatics”—what astrophysicist Jack Burns calls scientists who have a passion for exploring the moon.

Paul Hayne

Jack Burns

Researchers at the university, including Burns and planetary scientist Paul Hayne, are taking part in five upcoming lander missions through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative—the first slated to touch down later this week. CLPS is an ambitious effort to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface by landing spacecraft built by private companies on the moon.

The new missions will explore everything from volcanoes on the moon’s surface to signals washing through our galaxy from the dawn of the universe.

“When we last landed on the moon during the Apollo era, the sorts of experiments that could be done were limited based on the technology they had at the time,” said Hayne, a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��. “For the first time, we have the opportunity to deploy many different kinds of instruments on the lunar surface to make these up-close measurements.”

The new CLPS deliveries follow up on a successful experiment called Radio wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photo Electron Sheath (ROLSES). This instrument landed on the moon last year aboard a lander named Odysseus built by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines. Burns was a co-investigator on ROLSES, which recorded radio waves originating from Earth-based transmitters and from the Milky Way Galaxy.

For Burns, a professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS), the event was a long time in the making. The moon, he said, is a scientific laboratory like no other.

“I heard ‘no’ for decades. ‘We can’t go back to the moon. It’s a fantasy,’” Burns said. “But the science was so exciting and important that we stuck with it. And today, it’s happening.”

Here is a sampling of CU ��Vlog�ƽ��’s upcoming trips to the moon:

3D mapping the moon

The lunar festivities kicked off in late February with the launch of a lander named Athena, the successor to Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus. Athena is scheduled to land near the moon’s South Pole March 6 where it will deploy a rover that’s less than 2 feet long.

Aboard the rolling robot will be a camera based on technology from an old Xbox Kinect gaming system.

That camera, known as Moon3D, will generate the first up-close, 3D map of this part of the moon’s surface—capturing even small nooks and crannies in incredible detail. Hayne and Patrick O’Brien, a postdoctoral researcher at LASP, are spearheading an effort to use those maps to recreate information about temperatures across the moon’s surface. The Moon3D mission is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Colorado-based company Lunar Outpost is building the lander.

“’Micro-cold traps,’ craters as small as a penny that never see the sun, could harbor abundant ice deposits that provide crucial insights into the history of water on the moon,” O’Brien said.

Athena launched Feb. 26 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

On Feb. 26, Intuitive Machine's "Athena" lander launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in Florida. (Credit: NASA)

Artist's depiction of a Draper lunar lander on the surface of the moon. (Credit: NASA)

Protecting astronauts from electric charges

After ROLSES, Burns’ next moon experiment is positively electric. The first lander from the Massachusetts-based company Draper, in partnership with the Japanese company iSpace, will head to the moon’s Schrödinger Basin next year—a nearly 200-mile-wide impact crater on the lunar far side, or the part of the moon that never faces Earth.

From there, the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Lite (LuSEE-Lite) instrument will map out the electric charges that hover just above the moon’s surface—similar to the forces that make your socks stick together in the dryer. Those charges could pose risks to future astronauts on the moon. LuSEE-Lite consists of a single antenna that will stick up more than 20 feet from the lander.

Burns serves as a co-investigator on the mission, which is led by the University of California, Berkeley.

Tuning in to the ancient universe

A similar instrument known as LuSEE-Night will build on data from LuSEE-Lite, with a dark twist. It’s flying aboard Blue Ghost 2, the second lunar lander from the company Firefly Aerospace, which operates out of Cedar Park, Texas. (Firefly’s first lander successfully landed on the moon March 2).

Blue Ghost 2 will touch down on the moon’s far side and observe radio waves emanating from space far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Burns noted that these faint signals could give scientists clues to a hidden period in the history of the cosmos called the “Dark Ages”—a time just before the first stars and galaxies formed in the early universe about 100 million years after the Big Bang.

Burns explained that the moon’s far side provides scientists with an unprecedented opportunity to view these signals, in part because the region is shielded from the radio noise of technology on Earth. LuSEE-Night is also led by UC Berkeley.

“We are carrying 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds, of batteries with us, which will allow LuSEE-Night to potentially survive on the lunar surface for two years and operate at night,” Burns said. “That’s the quiet time on the moon because there’s no noise coming from the sun.”

Artist's depiction of an orbital vehicle deploying a Blue Ghost lander. (Credit: Firefly Aeropsace)

The moon's mysterious Gruithuisen Domes as seen from space. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

Getting to the bottom of the domes

Firefly’s next lander boasts not one but two instruments with involvement from CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� scientists.

Blue Ghost 3 will head for a puzzling region of the moon known as the Gruithuisen Domes. These rounded mountains rise to nearly a mile above the moon’s surface and were formed by lava rich in silica.

Hayne explained that on Earth, silica tends to only appear in large quantities in lava formed by the churn of plate tectonics. What these silica-rich features are doing on the moon, which has no continental plates, remains a mystery.

The planetary scientist joined a team led by the University of Central Florida that is trying to answer that question. A rover known as the Lunar Vulkan Imaging Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) will detach from the Blue Ghost lander and roll around this region of the moon. Lena Heffern, a systems engineer at LASP, and Margaret Landis, a research scientist at LASP, are co-investigators on the Lunar-VISE mission. Hayne is leading work on an infrared camera that will sit on the lander and help to identify the nearby minerals.

"It's an exciting opportunity to combine measurement techniques from the Lunar-VISE instruments to understand the evolution and history of lunar volcanism at this unusual location," Landis said.

The Space and Mission Systems division of the Colorado-based company BAE Systems, formerly Ball Aerospace, is building Lunar-VISE’s science instruments.

Burns and his colleagues, meanwhile, are getting a second moon shot of sorts.

The astrophysicist previously participated in the ROLSES experiment led by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. When the Odysseus spacecraft touched down on the moon, it tipped onto its side, which limited how much data the ROLSES team was able to collect.

Now, the same researchers are launching ROLSES 2, which boasts a few improvements on the original design. The new instrument will include four antennas and, like LuSEE-Night, will collect radio waves—in this case, not just from the Milky Way but also from our own planet, moon and sun.

Burns explained that radio waves coming from Earth can tell scientists a lot about the magnetic fields that surround the globe. He hopes that the team’s data will help scientists search for potentially habitable planets beyond Earth’s solar system, what scientists call “exoplanets.”

“We know that on Earth, the magnetic field is essential for life because it shields us from dangerous radiation in space,” he said. “If we can learn more about these radio emissions, we may one day be able to measure the strength of magnetic fields around exoplanets.”

ROLSES 2 is also led by NASA Goddard in close partnership with CU ��Vlog�ƽ��.

Scaling mountains

Hayne will take part in one more CLPS mission set to launch in 2027. Intuitive Machines’ fourth and final planned lander, which doesn’t yet have a name borrowed from Greek mythology, is heading for the region around Mons Mouton. It is one of the tallest mountains on the moon, rising to nearly 20,000 feet above the surface.

The lander will carry a camera called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System (L-CIRiS), which is similar to the camera flying aboard Blue Ghost 3. (L-CIRiS was also built by BAE Systems). The device will measure temperatures across the lunar surface, including around the shadows tucked behind boulders and inside craters. Those images could help future space explorers know where to look for water frozen into ice on the moon.

“These are measurements we’ve never been able to make before,” Hayne said.

After decades of waiting, Burns is eager for what the next few years will hold.

“This is something I tell my students—to never accept ‘no,’” he said.

The L-CIRiS instrument will map out temperatures on the moon's surface near the lunar South Pole. (Credit: LASP)

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 CU ��Vlog�ƽ��-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� on LinkedIn

Researchers will explore everything from volcanoes on the moon’s surface to signals washing through our galaxy from the dawn of the universe.

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Fran Bagenal appointed to NASA advisory committee

Megan Maneval — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 15:25:36 +0000

Fran Bagenal appointed to NASA advisory committee Megan Maneval Mon, 02/17/2025 - 08:25

Fran Bagenal, a senior research scientist at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU ��Vlog�ƽ��, has been named to the NASA Advisory Council’s Science Committee.

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5 LASP missions to explore strange new worlds

Megan Maneval — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:30:31 +0000

5 LASP missions to explore strange new worlds Megan Maneval Thu, 01/23/2025 - 12:30

Scientists are getting closer every day to getting the best view yet of alien worlds, thanks to years of dedicated work by several missions in which the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� was involved.

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CUriosity: What is the biggest thing in the universe?

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:54:26 +0000

CUriosity: What is the biggest thing in the universe? Daniel William… Wed, 01/22/2025 - 09:54

Daniel Strain

In CUriosity, experts across the CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� campus answer pressing questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

This week, Jeremy Darling, professor in the Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, jumps into “What is the biggest thing in the universe?” And check out “What is the smallest thing in the universe?”

Computer simulation of the universe's "cosmic web," in which galaxies congregate in dense filaments surrounding sparse voids. (Credit: ESA/Volker Springel, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, et al.)

The vastness of space can be hard to wrap your head around.

Say you are an ordinary beam of light blazing through space at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. It would take you 8 minutes and 20 seconds to make it from the sun to Earth—an impressive distance of 94 million miles. It would take almost an entire day to travel between Earth and NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently more than 15 billion miles from Earth.

That’s far, but nothing compared to the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy, which contains something around 100 billion stars. Light crosses from one edge of this expanse to the other over a staggering 100,000 years.

Previously in CUriosity

How do sea creatures make light?

Or read more CUriosity stories here

And this distance is only the tip of a very, very big iceberg, according to astrophysicist Jeremy Darling. He’s a cosmologist who studies large things, from the evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way to how black holes can bend space and time.

“I really like big questions,” he said. “It's amazing to me that a person can say something new about the universe after working on it for only a few years.”

Darling explained that the universe has a structure that goes way beyond individual galaxies. Just after the Big Bang, he said, the universe wasn’t completely homogenous. Some regions of space were a little denser with matter than others. Over time, those dense areas got denser, while the less dense areas became even more sparse—a bit like milk separating into curds and whey. Eventually, the cosmos formed a pattern like a web. Galaxies tend to cluster into long strands, or filaments, that surround relative empty patches of space known as voids.

“The filaments are the most massive structures in the universe, especially at the points where they meet, which are called clusters or superclusters,” Darling said.

So how big is one of these galactic clumps? The Milky Way sits in what scientists call the Laniakea Supercluster, named after the Hawaiian word for “immense heaven.” This supercluster boasts around 100,000 galaxies, some much larger than our own, and extends around 520 million light-years across. Put differently, light has been traveling across this expanse for almost as long as animals with backbones have lived on Earth.

In his own research, Darling has tracked the evolution of such superclusters. He’s developed new methods to, for example, observe galaxies falling out of voids and into the denser filaments.

But you might not want to get used to them, at least on cosmic time scales. The universe, Darling said, is expanding at an accelerating pace due to a mysterious force known as dark energy.

“Dark energy, if it keeps going, will start pulling stuff apart that we would have otherwise thought would remain together,” he said.

Even the biggest things in the universe, it turns out, are no match for time.

Space is full of really big things, like the sun or the black hole at the center of our galaxy. But the largest structures in the universe are much bigger than both of them, says astrophysicist Jeremy Darling.

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