This means full steam ahead to launch (probably in 2028). Professor Josh Emery is a member of the science team for this mission. Congratulations!

A Partial Disintegration of Active Centaur/Comet P/2020 MK4?

Jupiter’s Icy Moon
NAU Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science students Becks Carmack and Patrick Tribbett are helping NASA prepare for the 2024 Europa Clipper Mission. Becks and Patrick are conducting research on the composition of Europa’s icy surface.

SOFIA is that 747 airplane with a hole in the side of it — for a telescope — for years.

She is shown in the photo below (she’s in the black shirt in the front row), as part of the mission crew for SOFIA’s last ever flight in September of this year. The mission has been canceled .. but Emily has landed on her feet. She recently started a new position as Senior Flight Operations Engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute — the entity that operates the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.

A great story and a career arc that continues to rise!

The Soil of Mars
Department of Astronomy & Planetary Science PhD candidates Ari Koeppel and Helen Eifert are working with associate professor Christopher Edwards, to understand how moisture is retained on the martian planet.

Our department had a terrific showing there.

The following people were listed as first- or co-author on at least one presentation.

• Grad-students: Carmack, Engle, Humes, Lopez-Oquendo, McClure, McGraw, Raposa, Strauss, Thieberger, and Tribbett
• Postdocs: Oldroyd
• Faculty: Emery, Loeffler, Tegler, Thomas, Trilling, Trujillo, and affiliate faculty Lindberg.

This group represents 30 or more abstracts/presentations. Wow!

From 12 hours to 11.5 hours!

Our Cristina Thomas is head of the DART observations working group — in other words, the group that measured this result, which is the main result for the entire mission!

I haven’t even tried to follow all the press coverage of DART and Cristina, but there’s plenty out there for you read. I’ve seen Cristina appear in the New York Times at least 2-3 times over the past few weeks, and she tells me the paper with this main result in it is about to be submitted — fast work! Congratulations, Cristina, on all this success.

A Radiative-Convective Model for Terrestrial Planets with Self-Consistent Patchy Clouds

This also includes Ty Robinson, David Trilling, and Amber Young as co-authors.

First Assimilation of Atmospheric Temperatures From the Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer

Thermal Reactions between H2S and O3: Implications for Europa Surface Chemistry

3 μm Spectroscopic Survey of Near-Earth Asteroids

Faculty Josh Emery and Cristina Thomas are also on this paper, as is former postdoc Maggie McAdam.

We had 13 undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty who presented.
Thanks and congratulations!

An Evolved Early Crust Exposed on Mars Revealed Through Spectroscopy

Timing and duration of ephemeral Antarctic water tracks and wetlands using high temporal–resolution satellite imagery, high spatial–resolution satellite imagery, and ground-based sensors in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

Non-isoplethic measurement on the solid–liquid–vapor equilibrium of binary mixtures at cryogenic temperatures

Co-authors include other dept. faculty and grad students: Will Grundy, Jennifer Hanley, Stephen Tegler, Anna Engle, and Cece Thieberger.

Migratory Outbursting Quasi-Hilda Object 282P/(323137) 2003 BM80

A Two Martian Years Survey of Water Ice Clouds on Mars with ACS onboard TGO

Utilizing a global network of telescopes to update the ephemeris for the highly eccentric planet HD 80606 b and to ensure the efficient scheduling of JWST

Discovery of a brown dwarf with quasi-spherical mass-loss

detailing the significant improvements to a processing pipeline for using THEMIS compositional data of Mars.

Simplified Automatic Atmospheric Correction for THEMIS Infrared Data

Migrating Thermal Tides in the Martian Atmosphere during Aphelion Season Observed by EMM/EMIRS

A Deep and Wide Twilight Survey for Asteroids Interior to Earth and Venus

DECam at 10 years — Looking Back, Looking Forward

Diurnal Variability in EMIRS Daytime Observations of Water Ice Clouds During Mars Aphelion-Season

Migrating Thermal Tides in the Martian Atmosphere During Aphelion Season Observed by EMM/EMIRS

EMIRS Observations of the Aphelion-Season Mars Atmosphere

More to come soon!

Arecibo Planetary Radar Observations of Near-Earth Asteroids: 2017 December–2019 December

Soil-atmosphere fluxes of CO2, CH4, and N2O across an experimentally-grown, successional gradient of biocrust community types

Authors include APS faculty Mark Salvatore and David Trilling; APS undergrad alum Wesley Sonnemaker; astronomy REU alumni Gary Kong and Kat Taylor; and faculty and staff from elsewhere on campus (Andrew Richardson, Jim Le Moine, Matt Bowker, Jay Barber, Mariah Carbone, Michaela Hayer, and George Koch).

Isolating the mechanisms for asteroid surface refreshing

Meet Northern Arizona University Planetary Scientists
NAUTV interviewed 3 professors and 1 grad student from NAU to talk about everything from their favorite science fiction movie to the Fermi Paradox!

titled “Determining the Role of Space Weathering on Hydrated Asteroids through Laboratory Studies”. This will look how space weathering affects hydrated mineral’s 3-micron region through a combination of reflectance spectroscopy, surface chemical analysis and electron microscopy. The majority of the experiments and analysis will be performed here at NAU, while the electron microscopy will be performed at Purdue. Much of the preliminary data for this award was done with support from NAU’s HURA and Space Grant programs.

This award is for three-years and is for $601,926.

Detection Feasibility of H2 in Ultra-hot Jupiter Atmospheres

This includes faculty Cristina Thomas, Josh Emery, and adjunct faculty Will Grundy as co-authors.

Thermophysical and Compositional Properties of Paleobedforms on Mars

This work indicates there’s minimal water-rock interaction needed to preserve the full shape of the features. Aaron’s supervisor, Christopher Edwards is a co-author.

Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Lucy Mission Targets with the Hubble Space Telescope

Faculty Cristina Thomas and Josh Emery; and adjunct faculty, Will Grundy are co-authors.

How great to see that this paper in the actual journal is side by side with PhD student Andy Lopez’ paper that appeared in my previous good news email!

These are internal funds “to accelerate transformative change at NAU.” David’s proposal will fund the construction of two new roll-off roof facilities next to our existing facility and more than triple the undergraduate enrollment in AST181L (a liberal/general studies class).

Mark had two proposals funded: one to kickstart a Hat Ranch-based research collaboration; the other to develop and implement a Hat Ranch-based summer field camp.

From Data to Software to Science with the Rubin Observatory LSST

“Rapid response asteroid science from ZTF and LSST data” (three years, $452,885). This project will ingest data from an ongoing all-sky survey and continue to prepare software tools for an even bigger upcoming survey.

Spacecraft sample collection and subsurface excavation of asteroid (101955) Bennu

This proposal includes support for postdoc, Christopher Haberle, and involves individuals from JPL and the USGS.

3 years starting in Dec. Total $783K

David Trilling, Mike Gowanlock (SICCS and affiliate faculty in APS), and Daniel Kramer (MS student in SICCS) are running and astroinformatics boot camp, August 15-19. This project was funded by the Las Cumbres Observatory and the Heising-Simons Foundation with the goal of increasing diversity in LSST- and astroinformatics-related fields. There are nine undergraduates in the boot camp, from a range of majors.

The Nature of Low-Albedo Small Bodies from 3-μm Spectroscopy: One Group that Formed Within the Ammonia Snow Line and One that Formed Beyond It

The POKEMON Speckle Survey of Nearby M dwarfs. I. New Discoveries

A Uniform Retrieval Analysis of Ultra-cool Dwarfs. IV. A Statistical Census from 50 Late-T Dwarfs

“The Elusive Planet X,” inside the July Issue.

“The grant will be through NASA Goddard/University of Maryland where my collaborators on this X-ray work are. The Cayuse number is 22-0160 Charge-exchange X-ray Emission Calculations for XRISM Spectral Modeling: hydrogen- and helium-like highly-charged ion emission. It is nominally for three years and I think it will start in January.”

Recent Phd awardee Audrey Martin gave a talk at a Lowell Observatory-hosted event at Meteor Crater, as did David Trilling together with Melissa Sevigny from KNAU.

Physical Characterization of 2015 JD1: A Possibly Inhomogeneous Near-Earth Asteroid

Co-authors include David Trilling, recent PhD alumna Annika Gustafsson, and (very) recent PhD awardee Colin Chandler.

Congratulations, Andy!

Tony Maue (advisor: Devon Burr); Colin Chandler (advisor: Chad Trujillo); and Will Oldroyd (advisor: Chad Trujillo).

We are so proud of all of the great work you have done and wish you good luck in your next adventures!

and is heading to University of Arizona/LPL for his PhD in the fall. Beau published lots of papers and won tons of award, and is featured in a recent NAU Review article.

Beau did his research in Mark Loeffler’s lab.

Patrick works with Mark Loeffler.

The review board consisted of 6 outside experts in Mars science and instrumentation and spaceflight hardware. Congratulations to the 15 students who presented and to the mentor team (Christopher Edwards, Chris Haberle, incoming PhD student Laura Lee, David Trilling, Alix Ford, and Michael Shafer from Mechanical Engineering). On to the next steps!

and repurposed for a long-term study of Near Earth Asteroid Apophis. Postdoc Chris Haberle was named the Instrument Scientist for OTES, and you can read all about it

This new role brings over $3M in funding to NAU. Congratulations, Chris!

Press release

The paper is Gardening of the Martian Regolith by Diurnal CO2 Frost and the Formation of Slope Streaks

This two year award will fund 20 underrepresented minority students from the CCC2NAU program — students who are starting at Coconino Community College and will transfer to NAU — to work in NAU astronomy-related research labs. The goal is to increase URM participation in astronomy and related fields, using research connections to increase retention and create future career opportunities. There is a long list of named collaborators: from APS, Christopher Edwards, Mark Loeffler, and Ty Robinson; from Forestry, Matt Bowker; from SICCS, Scott Goetz, Andrew Richardson, Chris Doughty, and Mike Gowanlock; from APMS, Gerrick Lindberg; from Mechanical Engineering, Michael Shafer; from Biology, Tinna Traustadottir, JJ Duke, and Sara Jarvis; from CSTL, Nena Bloom and Tina Zecher; and from Lowell, Jennifer Hanley. David is excited about starting this project and making this new connection that sits on top of the well-established 2NAU pipeline.

Erin and Phil were interviewed by a reporter for NPR in Phoenix KJZZ: Star study shines new light on old stars, black holes

There’s also a few articles popping up here and there:

• From The Lowell Observatory : “Massive Stars Produce Less Oxygen Than Previously Believed; May Explain the Existence of Heavy Black Holes”
• View from Mars Hill: Massive stars produce less oxygen than previously believed

The meeting was to talk about research opportunities ahead of Apophis’Earth flyby in 2029 [OSIRIS-APex, above].

Mary Bolling, Michelle Kearney, and Beau Prince (BS) and Erin Aadland, Catherine Clark, and Lauren Biddle (PhD). We are proud of you!

This will be used to help track views on EDI-related issues. If you have not responded already, please follow this link to complete the survey.

to the monthly OSP (Office of Special Projects) campus-wide research administration all-hands meeting.

Exploring and Validating Exoplanet Atmospheric Retrievals with Solar System Analog Observations

Effects of phosphorus on partial melting of the Martian Mantle and compositions of the Martian Crust is about the effects of phosphorus on martian magmas and the implications regarding the mineralogy and composition of the upper-mantle and crust on Mars. Mars mantle contains 10 times more phosphorus than the terrestrial mantle, which has first orders implications regarding the composition/mineralogy of the interior of the two planets.

The role of assimilation and fractional crystallization in the evolution of the Mars crustdiscusses how crustal assimilation on Mars could have affected magma evolution, especially for felsic rocks analyzed by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater. It is the first time such process is modeled in martian conditions.

Catherine Clark, Lauren Biddle, and Erin Aadland. We are so proud of all of you!

Congratulations also to their advisors (by coincidence, all at Lowell Observatory): Gerard van Belle, Lisa Prato, and Phil Massey, respectively.

Finally, a special shout out to Ty Robinson (who served on all three committees!) and to Kathryn Neugent, who is an external member of Erin’s committee and is the first alum from our department to serve on one of our PhD committees (Kathryn received her MS from NAU in 2017, and participated in our REU program in 2009).

This document presents community-identified high priority research and investment areas for the coming decade. Congratulations to Chad Trujillo for his hard work as a member of the Small Solar System Bodies panel.

Fifteen members of our department presented their research. Congratulations and see you again in the fall!

Congratulations to all those students and their mentors.

Postdoc Laura Fackrell and professorMark Salvatore there; and PhD student, Lori Pigue — both sharing projects they had built for K-12 students.

Lunch Break Science: Infrared Mars: Seeing What Our Eyes Cannot

Every rock has a story to tell, from its composition, shape and even temperature. All these factors help uncover fascinating facts and sometimes unexpected stories from the past. So, what does Mars and its geology and temperature tell us about the big red planet and it’s habitability? Come find out!

Infrared cameras aboard satellites in orbit around Mars have collected an astoundingly complete record of martian surface temperatures spanning over five decades. So, how does this help us? Well, the physical makeup of certain rocks and sediments greatly affect how quickly surfaces can heat up or cool down, giving us invaluable insights into the geological make up of areas that are currently inaccessible. Studying these temperatures can make it possible to learn even more about past environmental processes on Mars and even if its climate was once conducive to life. In addition, studying Mars-like field sites here on Earth can help answer even more questions and bring us closer to the ultimate goal of Mars exploration!

In this fascinating lecture come learn about Mars and current NASA-funded work being done at Mars-like field sites on Earth, in Arizona, California, Hawaii and Iceland, in support of temperature interpretation.

to fund travel to NASA GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) for work on understanding the interior-atmosphere coupling during the magma ocean phase of terrestrial planet evolution.

• Lori Pigue gave an oral presentation in the Planetary Volcanism: Melt to Morphology session, on exploring relationships between effusive and explosive volcanism in the Montes Apenninus region of the Moon.
• Christian Tai Udovicic presented a talk Modeling the Effects of Basin Impacts and Ballistic Sedimentation on Ice in Lunar Cold Traps (#1528) about potential ice reservoirs near the lunar south pole. This talk and co-authored posters #1621, #1637 and #1687 were results from the 2021 LPI Exploration Science summer internship. Christian also co-authored poster #2113 about the rate of space weathering on the Moon.
• Oriel Humes gave an in-person talk on ultraviolet spectroscopy of Lucy mission targets.
• Helen Eifert gave a poster on the influence of alluvial fan process on grain size and morphometry of four fans in the Mojave Valley in the southwestern United States.
• Natalie Jones presented a poster in the “Environmental Analogs” session of LPSC, titled Mars Analog Environment: Compositional Remote Sensing of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Allie Rutledge, Mark Salvatore, and Briony Horgan (Purdue) were coauthors.
• Cece Thieberger and Chris Wolfe were co-authors on several presentations.
• Postdocs Cheng Ye and Valerie Payre also presented.
• Faculty Devon Burr, Christopher Edwards, Josh Emery, Mark Loeffler, Allie Rutledge, Mark Salvatore, and Cristina Thomas also presented.

to work with Kerri Donaldson-Hanna starting in August!

Congratulations, Audrey!

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity town hall was held on Friday, March 4th. Many tens of individuals from APS were in attendance, and a great deal of excellent ideas were presented to the EDI Committee. The EDI Committee is tracking suggestions from this event, and is already making forward progress in many associated areas!

A Dearth of Close-In Stellar Companions to M-dwarf TESS Objects of Interest

The challenge was to build a Titan lake sample return mission where it had to collect three samples from Ligeia Mare: 1) the atmosphere right above the lake, 2) the lake liquid, 2) solid material from either the shoreline or seafloor. Anna’s team decided to use a buoy+profiler design and the engineers built a system that would return 500 g of sample!! It was a great time and the team is already planning on doing yearly reunions!

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NASA Recognizes Early Career Planetary Scientists at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

Olivine and carbonate-rich bedrock in Gusev crater and the Nili Fossae region of Mars may be altered ignimbrite deposits

Heising-Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b Fellowship in Planetary Astronomy

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, is a 747 with a telescope inside; the observatory flies above 40,000 feet. CoIs include Cristina Thomas and PhD student Oriel Humes.

The instrument scientist for the SOFIA program is Nicole Karnath — an alumna of our MS program from 2013!

She will be returning to research related to off-world sustainable agriculture and planetary protection. “I get to grow snap peas ‘on the Moon’ at JPL!”

Congratulation, Laura!

They brought 4 telescopes and set up in the parking lot of Market Village where the lodge staff reserved an area for the star party and turned of the lights!! Approximately 200 lodge patrons and others turned out of the event. Telescopes were operated by Michelle & Kevin Weidinger (FUSD Walker Observatory), Tracy Begay (AIMER Space Grant Intern) and Margie McCullough (Ed’s better half).

to bring the thin film station in the Astrophysical Materials Lab online.

to build the Planetary Environmental Research Chamber (PERCh).

A possible explanation for the blue spectral slope observed on B-type asteroids

This work shows that the blue spectral slope on these types of asteroids could simply be a consequence of the presence of micron-size dark material that will be mixed in the surface regolith.

Beau is, justifiably, having a lot of success in the graduate admissions process — congratulations, Beau, and very well deserved!

with Dr. Brendan Bowler to work on high-contrast imaging of young exoplanets with Hubble!”

Congratulations, Lauren — we are all very proud of you!

The papers re-assess calibrations for determining asteroid mineralogy from spectra, then applies new calibrations to archives spectra of S-complex asteroids.

A contemporary view of the ordinary chondrite boot I: Band parameter analysis dependency

A contemporary view of the ordinary chondrite boot II: Mineralogical variation of S-type asteroids

Spectral effects of regolith porosity in the mid-IR – Forsteritic olivine

Congratulations , Oriel!

AAS Journal Author Series: Catherine Clark on 2021RNAAS…5..280C

Once you’ve watched that video and been impressed by Catherine and her work you will not be surprised to learn that she has accepted a postdoc position at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.

She’ll be working in the Exoplanet Exploration Program office with Karl Stapelfeldt and Eric Mamajek. (Part of the job is also at Caltech’s NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute, NexSci.)

Congratulations, Catherine!

LSST is the Legacy Survey of Space and Time — an all-sky survey that will come online in a year or two, using a large telescope in Chile, and that will revolutionize astronomy. Colin’s position is as Project Scientist, overseeing and working on Solar System science that will result from LSST.

Congratulations, Colin!

Congratulations, Phil!

Who wants to be an astronomer? — a story about Colin Chandler’s citizen science project to study active asteroids.

The top ten list is here.

Rapid rounding of icy clasts during simulated fluvial transport in the Titan Tumbler concerns results from our Titan Tumbler experiments simulating fluvial abrasion on Titan, conducted at Colgate University with NAU faculty Devon Burr, and Colgate colleague Joe Levy and students.

Sieved mass and shape data from simulated fluvial transport of icy clasts in the Titan Tumbler contains the full publicly available data set from the experiments.

Anna is of 32 selected out of 900 applicants.

he Caltech Space Challenge is a 5-Day International Student Space Mission Design Competition

Wow, Anna — congratulations!

Thanks for taking on this service, Cristina!

This includes funding for the next ~3.5 years for Edwards and a postdoc.

for at least another year following the augmentation of an existing award

under the supervision of Christopher Edwards, and we will soon be the proud owners of a class 10K clean room!