Space

Trio of tiny CubeSats unveiled secrets of the sun's X-ray light

Megan Maneval — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 14:56:32 +0000

Trio of tiny CubeSats unveiled secrets of the sun's X-ray light Megan Maneval Fri, 06/13/2025 - 08:56

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

In this Q&A, astrophysicist Kevin France, a LASP researcher and associate professor, explores how astrophysics鈥攐nce considered to be the purview of big telescopes like Hubble鈥攊s being revolutionized by SmallSats.

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Supernovae may have kicked off abrupt climate shifts in the past, and they could again

Megan Maneval — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 14:46:33 +0000

Supernovae may have kicked off abrupt climate shifts in the past, and they could again Megan Maneval Fri, 06/13/2025 - 08:46

INSTAAR

Robert Brakenridge has spent decades trying to understand how distant exploding stars may have affected Earth's atmosphere in the past. A new analysis indicates the need for continued research in the field.

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But how's the atmosphere there?

Megan Maneval — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 18:15:23 +0000

But how's the atmosphere there? Megan Maneval Thu, 06/12/2025 - 12:15

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

In newly published research, 麻豆免费版下载Boulder scientists study a rocky exoplanet outside our solar system, learning more about whether and how planets maintain atmospheres.

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In new dawn of solar science, tiny CubeSats unveiled secrets

Megan Maneval — Fri, 23 May 2025 17:06:29 +0000

In new dawn of solar science, tiny CubeSats unveiled secrets Megan Maneval Fri, 05/23/2025 - 11:06

From 2016 to 2022, NASA's MinXSS CubeSat mission launched small satellites built by LASP students to study X-ray emissions from the sun. The mission, which officially ended in March, provided groundbreaking insights into solar activity and demonstrated how small, cost-effective satellites can achieve significant scientific results.

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Astrophysicist searches for ripples in space and time in new way

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 12 May 2025 16:16:18 +0000

Astrophysicist searches for ripples in space and time in new way Daniel William鈥� Mon, 05/12/2025 - 10:16

Daniel Strain

Artist's depiction of supermassive black holes generating the universe's gravitational wave background. (Credit: Olena Shmahalo for NANOGrav)

麻豆免费版下载 astrophysicist Jeremy Darling is pursuing a new way of measuring the universe鈥檚 gravitational wave background鈥攖he constant flow of waves that churn through the cosmos, warping the very fabric of space and time.

The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, could one day help to unlock some of the universe鈥檚 deepest mysteries, including how gravity works at its most fundamental level.

鈥淭here is a lot we can learn from getting these precise measurements of gravitational waves,鈥� said Darling, professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. 鈥淒ifferent flavors of gravity could lead to lots of different kinds of gravitational waves.鈥�

To understand how such waves work, it helps to picture Earth as a small buoy bobbing in a stormy ocean.

Darling explained that, throughout the history of the universe, countless supermassive black holes have engaged in a volatile dance: These behemoths spiral around each other faster and faster until they crash together. Scientists suspect that the resulting collisions are so powerful they, literally, generate ripples that spread out into the universe.

Jeremy Darling

This background noise washes over our planet all the time, although you鈥檇 never know it. The kinds of gravitational waves that Darling seeks to measure tend to be very slow, passing our planet over the course of years to decades.

In 2023, a team of scientists belonging to the NANOGrav collaboration achieved a coup by measuring that cosmic wave pool. The group recorded how the universe鈥檚 gravitational wave background stretched and squeezed spacetime, affecting the light coming to Earth from celestial objects known as pulsars, which act somewhat like cosmic clocks.

But those detailed measurements only captured how gravitational waves move in a single direction鈥攁kin to waves flowing directly toward and away from a shoreline. Darling, in contrast, wants to see how gravitational waves also move from side-to-side and up and down compared to Earth.

In his latest study, the astrophysicist got help from another class of celestial objects: quasars, or unusually bright, supermassive black holes sitting at the centers of galaxies. Darling searches for signals from gravitational waves by precisely measuring how quasars move compared to each other in the sky. He hasn鈥檛 spotted those signals yet, but that could change as more data become available.

鈥淕ravitational waves operate in three dimensions,鈥� Darling said. 鈥淭hey stretch and squeeze spacetime along our line of sight, but they also cause objects to appear to move back and forth in the sky.鈥�

Galaxies in motion

The research drills down on the notoriously tricky task of studying how celestial objects move, a field known as astrometry.

Darling explained that quasars rest millions of light-years or more from Earth. As the glow from these objects speeds toward Earth, it doesn鈥檛 necessarily proceed in a straight line. Instead, passing gravitational waves will deflect that light, almost like a baseball pitcher throwing a curve ball.

Those quasars aren鈥檛 actually moving in space, but from Earth, they might look like they are鈥攁 sort of cosmic wiggling happening all around us.

鈥淚f you lived for millions of years, and you could actually observe these incredibly tiny motions, you鈥檇 see these quasars wiggling back and forth,鈥� Darling said.

Or that鈥檚 the theory. In practice, scientists have struggled to observe those wiggles. In part, that鈥檚 because these motions are hard to observe, requiring a precision 10 times greater than it would take to watch a human fingernail growing on the moon from Earth. But our planet is also moving through space. Our planet orbits the sun at a speed of roughly 67,000 miles per hour, and the sun itself is hurtling through space at a blistering 850,000 miles per hour.

Detecting the signal from gravitational waves, in other words, requires disentangling Earth鈥檚 own motion from the apparent motion of quasars. To begin that process, Darling drew on data from the European Space Agency鈥檚 Gaia satellite. Since Gaia鈥檚 launch in 2013, its science team has released observations of more than a million quasars over about three years.

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 麻豆免费版下载Boulder-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 public university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow 麻豆免费版下载Boulder on LinkedIn

Darling took those observations, split the quasars into pairs, then carefully measured how those pairs moved relative to each other.

His findings aren鈥檛 detailed enough yet to prove that gravitational waves are making quasars wiggle. But, Darling said, it鈥檚 an important search鈥攗nraveling the physics of gravitational waves, for example, could help scientists understand how galaxies evolve in our universe and help them test fundamental assumptions about gravity.

The astrophysicist could get some help in that pursuit soon. In 2026, the Gaia team plans to release five-and-a-half more years of quasar observations, providing a new trove of data that might just reveal the secrets of the universe鈥檚 gravitational wave background.

鈥淚f we can see millions of quasars, then maybe we can find these signals buried in that very large dataset,鈥� he said.

Massive ripples in the very fabric of the universe wash over Earth all the time, although you'd never notice. 麻豆免费版下载Boulder's Jeremy Darling is trying a new search for these gravitational waves.

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CUriosity: A 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land?

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 07 May 2025 19:55:08 +0000

CUriosity: A 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land? Daniel William鈥� Wed, 05/07/2025 - 13:55

Daniel Strain

In CUriosity, experts across the 麻豆免费版下载Boulder campus answer pressing questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

This week, space weather experts Charles Constant, Marcin Pilinski and Shaylah Mutschler answer: 鈥淎 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land?鈥�

An aurora seen from the International Space Station reveals the influence of the sun on Earth's atmosphere. (Credit: NASA/JSC/ESRS)

Get updates about the Venus lander

Later this week, a piece of Cold War space history is expected to return to Earth鈥攁lthough where it will land remains unclear.

Scientists estimate that Kosmos 482, a Soviet spacecraft that launched from Earth in 1972 with plans to land on Venus, will reenter Earth鈥檚 atmosphere sometime this weekend. The spacecraft, which was fortified to withstand the extreme conditions at the surface of Venus, will likely reach Earth鈥檚 surface intact.

Don鈥檛 panic: The odds that this relic will land in a populated area are very low, said Marcin Pilinski, a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the 麻豆免费版下载.

The Kosmos 482 Venus lander. (Credit: NASA)

鈥淚t鈥檚 an infinitesimally small number,鈥� Pilinski said. 鈥淚t will very likely land in the ocean.鈥�

He鈥檚 keeping a close eye. Pilinski is part of a team of scientists that has tracked Kosmos 482 as it orbited Earth. They include Shaylah Mutschler, director of the space weather division for the company Space Environment Technologies, and Charles Constant, a doctoral student at University College London.

The researchers say that the case of Kosmos 482 shows why it鈥檚 so important for scientists to get a handle on the space environment around Earth鈥攗nderstanding how spacecraft orbit the planet, interact with its wispy upper atmosphere and, in some cases, fall back down.

It鈥檚 a story five decades in the making: Kosmos 482 set out for Venus in March 1972, but, due to an unknown error with its rockets, never made it far. Today, it orbits the planet in what scientists call an 鈥渆ccentric鈥� orbit, similar in shape to a stretched-out rubber band. Because of Cold War secrecy, the researchers aren鈥檛 sure how big the spacecraft is. But estimates suggest it鈥檚 more than meter (almost 3.5 feet) wide and weighs about 495 kilograms (1,090 pounds).

鈥淚t was supposed to escape the sphere of influence of Earth,鈥� said Mutschler, who earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering sciences from 麻豆免费版下载Boulder in 2022. 鈥淚t didn鈥檛 quite do enough to get out.鈥�

Previously in CUriosity

CUriosity: Why, and how, do ants walk in a perfect line?

Or read more CUriosity stories here

And it鈥檚 been slowing down ever since. Mutschler explained that, as Kosmos 482 orbited Earth, it sliced through the upper parts of the atmosphere, experiencing drag much like an airplane flying against the wind. Scientists like her even track tiny changes in the way the spacecraft moves past Earth to improve their simulations, or models, of the conditions in that region of space.

But predicting where the spacecraft will crash is more difficult. In part, that鈥檚 because this environment, known as low-Earth orbit, can change a lot. During events called solar storms, for example, the sun releases intense bursts of energy that can cause our planet鈥檚 atmosphere to inflate like a balloon. Weather near Earth鈥檚 surface can also send disturbances upwards, creating waves and ripples in low-Earth orbit. Pilinski is part of a group at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder called the Space Weather Technology Research and Education Center (SWx TREC). The center seeks to study the weather in space to better protect satellites in orbit around Earth.

鈥淧eople who monitor asteroids to see if they will potentially impact Earth actually have an easier job,鈥� Pilinski said. 鈥淭hose objects would enter at a really steep angle. They鈥檙e not skimming part of the atmosphere for days or weeks like this spacecraft.鈥�

Constant noted that understanding space weather is critical as companies across the globe launch more satellites into orbit.

鈥淥ne collision could spell disaster for everyone else,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 get this cloud of debris flying around, causing other potential collisions鈥攚hat we call a 鈥楰essler event.鈥欌€�

As for Kosmos 482, Mutschler said the researchers may be able to narrow down their estimates of where the spacecraft will crash about a day ahead of time.

鈥淎bout a day out, we should know with a reasonable amount of certainty whether there鈥檚 going to be a solar storm affecting Earth,鈥� Mutschler said, 鈥渙r if the atmospheric conditions are going to continue to be quiet.鈥�

In 1972, a Soviet lander known as Kosmos 482 launched for Venus. It never made it past Earth's gravity, and now the spacecraft is coming back.

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New Horizons collects first map of galaxy in important type of ultraviolet light

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 15:09:24 +0000

New Horizons collects first map of galaxy in important type of ultraviolet light Daniel William鈥� Mon, 04/28/2025 - 09:09

Map of the universe's Lyman-alpha emissions collected by New Horizons looking away from the sun. (Credit: SwRI)

This story was adapted from a version published by the Southwest Research Institute. Read the original story here.

The NASA New Horizons spacecraft鈥檚 extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar system.

鈥淯nderstanding the Lyman-alpha background helps shed light on nearby galactic structures and processes,鈥� said Randy Gladstone, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of the study. 鈥淭his research suggests that hot interstellar gas bubbles like the one our solar system is embedded within may actually be regions of enhanced hydrogen gas emissions at a wavelength called Lyman-alpha.鈥�

The team published its findings April 21 in The Astronomical Journal. Michael Shull, professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder, served as a co-author of the study.

New Horizons launched in 2006, and, after passing by Pluto in 2015, the spacecraft traveled outside the dustiest regions of Earth鈥檚 solar system鈥攁 good vantage point for viewing Lyman-alpha emissions.

Lyman-alpha is a specific wavelength of ultraviolet light emitted and scattered by hydrogen atoms. It is especially useful to astronomers studying distant stars, galaxies and the interstellar medium, as it can help detect the composition, temperature and movement of these distant objects.

After New Horizon鈥檚 primary objectives at Pluto were completed, scientists used the Alice instrument to make broader and more frequent surveys of Lyman-alpha emissions as the spacecraft traveled farther from the sun. These surveys included an extensive set of scans in 2023 that mapped roughly 83% of the sky.

The results indicate a roughly uniform background Lyman-alpha sky brightness 10 times stronger than expected from previous estimates. Shull explained that this intense glow is likely produced an 鈥渋nterstellar greenhouse effect.鈥�

鈥淭he strong Lyman-alpha emission line was scattered millions of times by the hydrogen gas, bouncing around space outside the solar system like interstellar ping-pong balls,鈥� he said.

The study also found no evidence that a hydrogen wall, thought to surround the sun鈥檚 heliosphere, substantially contributes to the observed Lyman-alpha signal. Scientists had theorized that a wall of interstellar hydrogen atoms would accumulate as they encountered the edge of our heliosphere, the vast region of space dominated by the solar wind as it interacts with the interstellar medium. However, the New Horizons data saw nothing to indicate the wall is an important source of Lyman-alpha emission.

鈥淭he Lyman-alpha emission map produced by New Horizons represents one of our first glimpses of the interstellar gas clouds that surround the 鈥楲ocal Hot Bubble,鈥欌€� Shull said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing to think that the hot bubble and interstellar structures were shaped by exploding stars just a few millions years ago.鈥�

SwRI鈥檚 Alan Stern, a co-author of the new study and principal investigator for New Horizons, added:

鈥淭hese are really landmark observations, in giving the first clear view of the sky surrounding the solar system at these wavelengths, both revealing new characteristics of that sky and refuting older ideas that the Alice New Horizons data just doesn鈥檛 support. 鈥� This Lyman-alpha map also provides a solid foundation for future investigations to learn even more.鈥�

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, giving it an unprecedented opportunity to view the universe's Lyman-alpha emissions鈥攁n important kind of ultraviolet light that can reveal new information about stars, distant galaxies and more.

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Student-built rocket soars to 2nd place finish at 24,000 feet

Megan Maneval — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:53:11 +0000

Student-built rocket soars to 2nd place finish at 24,000 feet Megan Maneval Mon, 04/28/2025 - 08:53

Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

The 麻豆免费版下载in Space Club's entry to the Argonia Cup rocket competition reached 24,000 feet and broke the sound barrier on its way to second place in the tournament.

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Planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann named new director of LASP

Megan Maneval — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 16:14:52 +0000

Planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann named new director of LASP Megan Maneval Wed, 04/23/2025 - 10:14

Ehlmann has been named the director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder. LASP, whose mission is to advance scientific discovery and inspire the next generation, is the university鈥檚 highest-budget research institute.

Bethany Ehlmann has been named the director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder. LASP's mission is to advance scientific discovery and inspire the next generation through forefront research, innovation and education.

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Research in space, helping people on Earth: BioServe marks 100th orbital launch

Daniel William Strain — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 02:54:14 +0000

Research in space, helping people on Earth: BioServe marks 100th orbital launch Daniel William鈥� Mon, 04/21/2025 - 20:54

Daniel Strain

The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida鈥攎arking BioServe's first launch into orbit. (Credit: NASA)

Louis Stodieck remembers the first time he saw a space shuttle blast off from NASA鈥檚 Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In April 1991, Stodieck, an aerospace engineer, was the associate director of BioServe Space Technologies, a research center at the 麻豆免费版下载.

He had helped to design a set of test tubes that would, among other things, not spill the moment they reached space. Stodieck handed the test tubes off to a NASA crew, then watched as his work lifted away from a launchpad aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.

鈥淚 never get tired of launches,鈥� said Stodieck, who served as BioServe鈥檚 director from 1999 to 2019 and is now its chief scientist. 鈥淭he sound reaches you seconds after the launch because you鈥檙e a few miles away. When it hits you, it鈥檚 this low vibration, and you just feel it.鈥�

BioServe founder Marvin Luttges in 1989. (Credit: BioServe)

The BioServe team poses for a photo in 1996. (Credit: BioServe)

A test tube designed for space by BioServe. (Credit: BioServe)

BioServe, which was founded in 1987, works with scientists at companies and research institutions around the world to conduct life science experiments in space.

Today, Stodieck and his colleagues are celebrating a new milestone: BioServe鈥檚 100th launch into orbit.

On Monday, April 21, a SpaceX Dragon capsule lifted off from a similar pad in Florida en route to the International Space Station (ISS). It carried equipment belonging to three research projects, or 鈥減ayloads,鈥� developed by BioServe. They include several colonies containing billions of bacteria and algae.

鈥淭his launch is an amazing milestone,鈥� said Stefanie Countryman, the current director of BioServe. 鈥淚t exemplifies the hard work of everybody at BioServe, not just our engineers and researchers, but also our students.鈥�

The center has come a long way since that first launch, NASA鈥檚 STS-37 mission, in 1991.

Researchers at the center have since sent a wide range of living things into orbit. They include single-celled organisms but also ants, silkworms, mice and an intrepid 鈥渟pidernaut鈥� named Nefertiti. (An 18-year-old student from Egypt proposed studying whether Nefertiti, a jumping spider, could adjust her hunting techniques in space, which she did). But BioServe has also kept one foot planted on the ground. The center鈥檚 research has generated new insights into human medical conditions like bone loss and cancer鈥攁nd could even lead to facilities in the not-so-distant future that orbit Earth while making human stem cells.

鈥淪pace gives us an opportunity to look at organisms in new ways, including how they may express genes differently than they do on Earth,鈥� Countryman said.

Single-celled astronauts

David Klaus, professor at the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, was a graduate student at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder when BioServe鈥檚 first launch took off. From 1985 to 1990, he worked as a shuttle launch controller at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and in Mission Control in Houston. Klaus is set to retire this spring and sees the 100th BioServe launch as a 鈥渂ookend鈥� on his career.

In those early days, BioServe鈥檚 work largely revolved around one challenge of conducting science from hundreds of miles above Earth鈥攐pen liquids and space don鈥檛 mix.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not like taking two test tubes in a lab on Earth and mixing them together,鈥� Klaus said. 鈥淲ith our early payloads, we were really just trying to figure out how we could manipulate biological fluids in a space environment and get some initial experimental results.鈥�

BioServe began as a 5-year grant from NASA under founder Marvin Luttges, a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder. Klaus explained that the center鈥檚 space test tubes include up to four sealed chambers. If you push down on a plunger, you can mix the fluids in those chambers one by one, all without exposing them to the air. BioServe has since sent thousands of its test tubes into space, and the basic design remains largely the same.

The team鈥檚 early research also revealed something surprising: BioServe scientists discovered that bacteria tend to grow better in space than they do on Earth鈥攑erhaps because they鈥檙e not being squished down by gravity. A handful of experiments showed that such bacteria could even be transformed into living factories for making anti-cancer drugs.

Astronaut Christina Koch uses a microscope supplied by BioServe aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

A lab 250 miles up

In the decades that followed, BioServe鈥檚 scientific equipment wound up on NASA鈥檚 four space shuttles, the Russian space station Mir and, eventually, the ISS, which entered into orbit in 1998.

Today, astronauts on the ISS can peer through a microscope flight certified and launched by BioServe and grow cell cultures in four incubators called Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) 1, 2, 3 and 4. BioServe even supplied the refrigerator where humans on the ISS store their food. On the ground, the center runs a mission operation and control center on the 麻豆免费版下载Boulder campus. There, BioServe staff talk to astronauts in real time on a giant screen.

鈥淲e鈥檙e replicating the sorts of biological labs that you can find at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder in space,鈥� said Tobias Niederwieser, a research associate at BioServe.

Astronaut Alexander Gerst loads biological cultures into a SABL incubator on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

Adeline Loesch assembles space "petri dishes" containing biological organisms in a lab on the 麻豆免费版下载Boulder campus. (Credit: Adeline Loesch)

The center has also collaborated with dozens of space agencies, universities and private companies over its history. On the current launch, for example, a company called Sophie鈥檚 Bionutrients based in the Netherlands contracted with the center to examine how algae produce proteins in space鈥攚hich the company hopes will lead to new kinds of algae-based meat substitutes.

The center鈥檚 most lasting contribution to science, however, may be its students. Over the years, hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder have worked for BioServe. Many have gone on to jobs at NASA and private space companies.

They include Adeline Loesch, a senior studying atmospheric and oceanic sciences at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder. She started working at BioServe between her freshman and sophomore years. These days, she does a little bit of everything for the center: She helps to build the hardware for experiments, assembles them for flight and sits in the operations center as astronauts carry out the research.

In the fall, Loesch will start work in spacecraft and satellite flight operations for Lockheed Martin in Colorado.

鈥淢y favorite is watching the projects come full circle during the operations,鈥� Loesch said. 鈥淲atching the research being done in real time by astronauts in space is the coolest thing ever.鈥�

Making humans healthier from space

In the end, BioServe鈥檚 research in space doesn鈥檛 stay in space.

Roughly 24 years ago, for example, Stodieck and his colleagues designed a specialized habitat for mice to live on the ISS. His team鈥檚 research has revealed new clues to why mammals lose bone mass when they leave Earth. Those insights, in turn, helped to inspire new kinds of medications for osteoporosis in people.

Niederwieser, meanwhile, is tackling what may be an even more ambitious goal鈥攈e and his colleagues are growing human hematopoietic stem cells in space. Doctors often transplant these cells into people to treat cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.

But they鈥檙e also tricky and expensive to make on Earth. In a few early experiments, Niederwieser and his colleagues discovered that stem cells, like bacteria, may grow more freely in space. Later this year, his team plans to transport a facility for producing stem cells en masse to the ISS.

That could lead to a new vision for space鈥攐ne in which stations in orbit around Earth produce various treatments for human illnesses, then send them back to patients on the ground.

鈥淗umans have been on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and have evolved with only one gravity,鈥� Stodieck said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really been a privilege to understand how organisms work in another environment.鈥�

Stodieck didn鈥檛 travel to Florida for Monday鈥檚 launch, but Klaus was there to see SpaceX鈥檚 Falcon 9 rocket roar off the launchpad. Before he left, he was feeling wistful about seeing his old stomping grounds again.

鈥淚'm looking forward to going down there and reminiscing a little bit,鈥� Klaus said. 鈥淚鈥檒l drive around and look at the base鈥攁 little 40-year flashback to where my career started.鈥�

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

19 麻豆免费版下载Boulder-affiliated astronauts
No. 1 public university recipient of NASA research awards
Only academic research institute in the world to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system

Follow 麻豆免费版下载Boulder on LinkedIn

For nearly 40 years, researchers at BioServe Space Technologies at 麻豆免费版下载Boulder have conducted life science experiments in space鈥攆rom studying the behavior of spiders in microgravity to producing human stem cells on the International Space Station.

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Space

Trio of tiny CubeSats unveiled secrets of the sun's X-ray light

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Supernovae may have kicked off abrupt climate shifts in the past, and they could again

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