Space
- <p>NASA's Cassini mission, carrying a $12 million Boulder instrument, is ending, but not before the spacecraft performs several dives between Saturn and its rings from now until September, when it will run out of fuel and vaporize.</p>
- A newly discovered “super-Earth” orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby small star is an intriguing target for astronomers searching for extraterrestrial life.
- A student-built microsatellite is on its way to the International Space Station today after launching successfully from Cape Canaveral. The satellite will become part of a network of miniaturized satellites studying a portion of Earth’s atmosphere.
- Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world.
- A University of Colorado Boulder team has entered into a five-year, $4.5-million cooperative agreement with NASA to become part of a virtual institute to pursue the construction of astronomical observatories on the moon.
- Images returned from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission indicate the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place during its most recent trip through the solar system. Imagine growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders.
- NASA has named Boulder as a partner in a first-of-its-kind $15 million research institute developing superstrong, lightweight materials for use in space exploration vehicles.
- Alumni, industry execs and other space buffs celebrated the state’s growing prominence in aerospace—from probing the Bennu asteroid to an array of industry partnerships—at the second annual Boulder Aerospace Summit earlier this week.
- Students and faculty at BioServe Space Technologies in aerospace engineering built two biomedical payloads that will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Feb. 18 to the International Space Station.
- University of Colorado Boulder researchers have discovered an atmospheric escape route for hydrogen on Mars, a mechanism that may have played a significant role in the planet’s loss of liquid water.