Credit: Steve Nesius/Reuters
The big news is that NASA’s Lucy mission launched successfully on Saturday, Oct. 16. Faculty member Josh Emery is a senior member of… Read more
LUCY Launch a Success!
Credit: Steve Nesius/Reuters
Astronomy
Credit: Steve Nesius/Reuters
Flagstaff Festival of Science presentation examines new possibilities of life in the solar system
In his presentation “Searching for Life in the Rivers and Lakes of the Outer Solar System” at this year‘s Flagstaff Festival of Science, [NAU Professor] Gerrick Lindberg talked about his research into what it takes for life to form and how this could occur in the outer reaches of our solar system.
Read the full article, written by NAU NASA Space Grant intern, Tristan Donnelly,… Read more
Where Earth’s water comes from, preparing for DART impact and a discovery from Active Asteroids
A Northern Arizona University researcher who studies active asteroids, which are rare asteroids with comet-like tails, presented groundbreaking research today at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences, a branch of the American Academy of Sciences.
Colin Chandler, a doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University and recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, presented “Recurrent activity from a Main Belt Comet.”
Read more here.
Star light, star bright
NAU Review had a nice article about the Flagstaff’s dark skies. Last week was the Flagstaff Star Party (across several nights) at Buffalo Park. Ed Anderson is on the Star Party organizing committed. We had over 1700 visitors watching the skies through 15 or so telescopes across the three nights. There as well as a number of past and present NAU undergrads. What a great city we live in!
Read… Read more
Planet 9 may be closer and easier to find than thought—if it exists
Chad Trujillo’s work is described in this recent National Geographic article: Planet 9 may be closer and easier to find than thought—if it exists
Astronomer recruiting volunteers in effort to quadruple number of known active asteroids
Through funding from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award in 2018, doctoral student Colin Orion Chandler in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science launched an ambitious new project, Active Asteroids, which is designed to engage volunteers in the search for more of these enigmatic objects. The highly competitive and prestigious program, awarded to only 15 percent of the more than 2,000 yearly applicants, provided… Read more