One sign that the New Horizons spacecraft is getting close to the distant planet of Pluto is the growing size of Will Grundy’s hotel room bill.
Grundy, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, is leader of New Horizons’ surface composition team. With just weeks to go until the spacecraft makes its closest pass of the dwarf planet, Grundy and the rest of the mission team are setting up camp at the… Read more
Scientists at Northern Arizona University mapped frozen water hidden just below the surface of Mars, with the goal of finding the best spots for future astronauts to visit. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports.
Buried water ice influences the temperature of a planet’s surface. The team used heat-sensing instruments on two orbiting spacecraft to map fluctuations in… Read more
Scientists are creating ways to compile and interpret an abundance of high-resolution satellite images on a continental scale to better understand Antarctica, Arizona and the world.
The same sophisticated satellite imaging techniques being developed to map and identify the size and composition of uncharted land in Antarctica soon may help scientists produce finely detailed geologic maps of the Lower Colorado River Corridor and better understand its geologic… Read more
In anticipation of sending humans to Mars by 2033, NASA scientists are searching for suitable locations to land on the Red Planet. Ideally, these potential landing sites would have high scientific value for exploration while offering natural resources to sustain human life. In the last 20 years, the community studying Mars has made significant progress mapping and characterizing reservoirs of ice.
In a new study published… Read more
Sept. 19, 2019
Chad Trujillo, assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, has been awarded the 2019 Paolo Farinella Prize by the Europlanet Society for his contributions in the field of planetary science concerning “The Trans-Neptunian Population.”
Along with collaborator Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution for Science, Trujillo was honored at an award ceremony on Sept. 16 at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Geneva, Switzerland. Shepard and Trujillo… Read more
Aug. 29. 2019
With new Ph.D. programs, a new research center, a new college and expanded faculty, all in the last three years, new departments weren’t far behind.
This summer, the Department of Physics and Astronomy split into the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences (APS) and the Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science (APMS). APMS is in the College of Engineering, Informatics, and Applied Sciences, while APS stays in the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural… Read more