DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is NASA’s first planetary defense mission. This mission will demonstrate asteroid deflection via kinetic impact. The goal is to collide with the target to see how the orbit changes. It’s a test run to see if such a plan is feasible should we find an asteroid on a collision course with… Read more
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
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
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.
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
“Are we alone?” asked Amber Young, a third-year graduate student in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at NAU.
“I’m heavily engaged in the search for life elsewhere. The age-old question of ‘are we alone?’ is a compelling one, and I’ve made a commitment to contribute as much as I can to answering it.”
Young is the recipient of a prestigious training grant from NASA to help her… Read more