Science & Technology

A first-person account from NASA Flight Director Fiona Turett, BSME ’09, on how she approaches her work leading teams of flight controllers, engineers and professionals on missions like Artemis I.

Manel Errando in Arts & Sciences is part of a team that determined that particle acceleration within black hole jets is best explained by a shock wave within the jet.

New measurements from Cygnus X-1, reported Nov. 3 in the journal Science, represent the first observations of a mass-accreting black hole from the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission, an international collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency. The lead author of the new study is physicist Henric Krawczynski in Arts & Sciences.

Kun Wang, in Arts & Sciences, was selected for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Participating Scientist Program. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will bring material from a near-Earth asteroid, Bennu, back to Earth in 2023.

Paul Byrne, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, is a science collaborator for a prototype aerial robotic balloon, or aerobot, built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Near Space Corp.

Physicists from Washington University in St. Louis are developing a new experiment as part of NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers Program. Brian Rauch in Arts & Sciences is leading the effort, which will investigate the origins of heavy elements in the universe and has a $20 million cost cap.

On Monday, Aug. 29, NASA plans to launch its Orion spacecraft from the world’s most powerful rocket for a trip around the moon. Lunar scientist Bradley L. Jolliff in Arts & Sciences explains why the Artemis mission represents the next great leap in human exploration of space.

Scott VanBommel, a senior scientist in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, received $284,827 in funding from NASA.

William McKinnon in Arts & Sciences received a $164,255 award from NASA and the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to support his work on a project to study Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Geoscientist Rita Parai in Arts & Sciences uses noble gas isotopes to better understand the formation and evolution of planetary bodies. Her new modeling study published in PNAS shows that the deep mantle had low concentrations of volatiles like xenon and water when it formed, setting up an internal viscosity contrast with lasting impacts.