Space

SPRITE mission set to launch, opening a new window on the ultraviolet universe

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 16:26:29 +0000

SPRITE mission set to launch, opening a new window on the ultraviolet universe Megan M Rogers Thu, 10/01/2026 - 10:26

The NASA mission led by researchers at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) will help scientists better understand how stars and galaxies shaped the early universe and its evolution.

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Cosmic sleuths at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder part of award-winning team investigating earliest parts of universe

Scott Franz — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:23:09 +0000

Cosmic sleuths at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder part of award-winning team investigating earliest parts of universe Scott Franz Thu, 09/24/2026 - 11:23

The UNCOVER team conducted ultradeep imaging and spectroscopy of and around Abell 2744, a massive group of galaxies also known as “Pandora's Cluster.” This image of the cluster was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope and astronomers estimate it includes 50,000 sources of near-infrared light. (Credit: NASA)

Scott Franz

Some of the images the powerful James Webb Space Telescope captures are strange.

They’re so strange, astrophysicists don’t know exactly what they're looking at.

Enter team UNCOVER (a name that’s easier to remember than what it stands for: Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam Observations before the Epoch of Reionization).

Starting in 2022, the group of more than 50 astrophysicists around the globe started meeting each week on Zoom to unlock the secrets of some of the oldest and most distant parts of our universe.

The group includes Erica Nelson and Wren Suess, assistant professors of astrophysical and planetary sciences at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Erica Nelson

Wren Suess

Together, they review and sometimes debate what they see in the odd images and other data. The observations include galaxies and light as old as 13 billion years.

“One of the things that I really love about having a wide network of collaborators is that people ask questions you haven’t thought to ask,” Suess said.

Sometimes a scientist will also remind the group of a research paper someone wrote a decade ago that might help guide the investigation into the strange objects.

This month, the team learned they’re earning the prestigious Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy.

“UNCOVER has fundamentally expanded our view of the early universe, revealing a population of distant galaxies and growing black holes that was largely hidden from previous observations,” said Ted Bergin, the senior vice president for the American Astronomical Society. “Its discoveries challenge our understanding of how the cosmos took shape while setting a powerful example of how large-scale collaboration can advance astronomy.”

The Astronomical Society said the team has discovered galaxies at cosmic dawn, including large populations of luminous galaxies and supermassive black holes in the early universe.

In the first stage of the project, UNCOVER focused on a group of distant galaxies called Pandora's Cluster.

“The cluster of galaxies is so massive it bends the light from all the things behind it, so all the galaxies further away get bent and magnified,” Suess said. “It’s the best way to use nature’s magnifying glass to look at the very, very distant universe.”

Studying the most distant parts of the universe is new to science. It requires looking at light in the infrared because the universe is expanding, and as it does so the light reaching us from distant galaxies gets stretched and shifted to the red part of the spectrum.

“It gives us a sort of window into the evolutionary picture of these galaxies,” Suess said.

Nelson said this team of scientists has a lot of potential.

A little red dot captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Photo: NASA)

“The power of a super fun team to uncover the first galaxies and black holes should not be underestimated,” Nelson said.

Nelson was part of a team that used data from the telescope to discover small, red-tinted spots of light that have since been named little red dots (LRDs).

Research suggests they’re supermassive black holes that are growing.

Ivo Labbé at the Swinburne University of Technology and Rachel Bezanson at the University of Pittsburgh co-lead the UNCOVER team and will formally accept the award.

Labbé will give the prize lecture on Jan. 14 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Erica Nelson and Wren Suess, assistant professors of astrophysical and planetary sciences at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, are part of an international team using the power of the James Webb Space Telescope to unlock mysteries of the earliest parts of our universe.

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Starspots distort our views of distant worlds. An odd planet could help sharpen the picture

Scott Franz — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Starspots distort our views of distant worlds. An odd planet could help sharpen the picture Scott Franz Thu, 09/10/2026 - 08:00

An artist’s impression of the TOI-3884 system: the super-Neptune TOI-3884b passing in front of the red dwarf star TOI-3884, which hosts a large starspot. The image was created using generative AI and image editing tools. (Credit: Mayuko Mori, Astrobiology Center)

Scott Franz

TOI-3884b is a very strange planet. At least by Earthling standards.

The gas giant orbits its small star very closely and quickly. It also goes around the star’s poles instead of its equator.

This oddball orbiter 140 light years from Earth has granted astronomers at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder a rare chance to study a large starspot in great detail for the first time. The spots form when magnetic fields keep heat from reaching the surface of a star.

Catriona Murray

The opportunity to study one comes when the planet eclipses the active spot every 4.5 days, allowing the team to learn about it using spectroscopy.

The data could eventually help astronomers around the globe in a race to learn more about planets outside our solar system. It could also help narrow the search for ones that might harbor life.

That’s because starspots can interfere with a telescope’s very sensitive observations of light as exoplanets—planets that exist beyond the solar system—pass by stars.

“This is one of the first times we’ve been able to directly measure the temperature spectrum of a starspot with such precision,” said Catriona Murray, a postdoctoral researcher in astrophysical and planetary sciences at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She’s specifically working to unravel the mysteries of exoplanets.

“Hopefully we can apply some of what we learn from this system to other small stars to be able to have more reliable measurements of the planets’ atmospheres around their stars,” Murray said.

Her research into the “extremely large” sun spot was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters this past spring.

Distorted view

The goal is to use the detailed observations of the starspot to test against astronomers’ models and predictions of the spots.

Studies suggest stellar contamination in exoplanet research is more prevalent and significant than scientists first thought.

In some cases, a cooler starspot can trick an astronomer into thinking a planet has water vapor in its atmosphere when it actually doesn’t.

“This is so pressing because it's hard to trust the amount of water that we're finding in an exoplanet’s atmosphere,” Murray said. “It's also hard to even trust the detection of water.”

Starspots can also distort readings of an exoplanet’s size and temperature.

By learning more about the spots and how they behave, Murray said scientists could eventually get better at filtering this interference out from their observations of exoplanets.

“Hopefully we can get a library of these starspot measurements and then we can learn more about the stars as a whole rather than just our star,” Murray said.

A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist's depiction. Such crossings, or transits, are observed by telescopes to glean information about planets' atmospheres. By analyzing the amount of light blocked by the planet at different wavelengths, researchers can determine which molecules make up the atmosphere. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Zooming in

It would take a scientist 2 billion years to travel to TOI-3884b in a car at 60 miles per hour.

So the starspot study began with a big challenge: Getting some time on the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.

The James Webb Space Telescope orbits the sun about a million miles from Earth and is giving astronomers the most detailed history of the universe yet. But, on average, just one out of every 10 proposals for observation time on the telescope is accepted.

A panel of astronomers reviews the requests and decides which ones will be awarded the time.

“The last application cycle, they had about 8,000 hours of observation time available and there were over 100,000 hours proposed,” Murray said.

Murray’s proposal rose to the top. In late 2024, she and her research team gave the coordinates and observing details to the scientists who operate the telescope remotely.

The telescope observed TOI-3884b make several passes over the starspot.

“We didn't take a picture of this star, but we have a sense of what it looks like,” said Zach Berta-Thompson, a professor of astrophysics and planetary science at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and a co-author of the study. “This is sort of doing an extraordinarily high-resolution mapping of something way far out there in space.”

Murray said if astronomers could see the star up close, it would look kind of bizarre. The spot covers about 20% of the visible stellar disk. It would look cooler and darker in quite a big chunk of the star.

The work continues. Murray and her research team will be working with the starspot data for years to come and testing it against models.

“It’s becoming more important to understand the star that hosts the planet,” she said. “For a long time, we assumed these stars are kind of the background noise, and now we have to actually really understand what they're doing.”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder astronomers use the power of the James Webb Space Telescope and a quirky planet's unusual orbit to help unravel the mysteries of a starspot far beyond Earth. The data could help in the hunt to find life far beyond Earth.

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An artist’s impression of the super-Neptune TOI-3884b passing in front of the red dwarf star TOI-3884 and its large starspot. The image was created using generative AI and image editing tools. (Credit: Mayuko Mori/Astrobiology Center)

Doctoral student advancing the science of Ice Giant planets at hypersonic speed

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:08:42 +0000

Doctoral student advancing the science of Ice Giant planets at hypersonic speed Megan M Rogers Thu, 09/03/2026 - 10:08

Cate Leszcz, an aerospace doctoral student, is conducting computational fluid dynamics research to unlock the mysteries of Uranus and Neptune.

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How �鶹��Ѱ��is shaping the mission to return humans to the moon

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:41:27 +0000

How �鶹��Ѱ��is shaping the mission to return humans to the moon Megan M Rogers Tue, 08/18/2026 - 12:41

As NASA prepares to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics is contributing to the Artemis program's success.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder-built flight hardware now aboard the International Space Station

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:05:30 +0000

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder-built flight hardware now aboard the International Space Station Megan M Rogers Thu, 07/30/2026 - 05:05

A new �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder-built instrument aboard the International Space Station will help researchers study biological samples more efficiently by automating imaging and incubation.

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5 upcoming trips to the moon and how �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientists are involved

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:49:24 +0000

5 upcoming trips to the moon and how �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientists are involved Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/20/2026 - 10:49

Selfie taken by "Athena," a lunar lander built by the company Intuitive Machines, which launched for the moon Feb. 26. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)

Daniel Strain

Selfie taken by "Athena," a lunar lander built by the company Intuitive Machines, which launched for the moon Feb. 26. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)

Editor's note: This story was originally published on March 4, 2025, and has been updated for International Moon Day 2026.

The next few years will be a busy time for �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s “lunatics”—what astrophysicist Jack Burns calls scientists who have a passion for exploring the moon.

Paul Hayne

Jack Burns

Researchers at the university, including Burns and planetary scientist Paul Hayne, are taking part in four upcoming lander missions through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. CLPS is an ambitious effort to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface by landing spacecraft built by private companies on the moon.

The new missions will explore everything from volcanoes on the moon’s surface to signals washing through our galaxy from the dawn of the universe.

“When we last landed on the moon during the Apollo era, the sorts of experiments that could be done were limited based on the technology they had at the time,” said Hayne, a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “For the first time, we have the opportunity to deploy many different kinds of instruments on the lunar surface to make these up-close measurements.”

The new CLPS deliveries follow up on a successful experiment called Radio wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photo Electron Sheath (ROLSES). This instrument landed on the moon last year aboard a lander named Odysseus built by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines. Burns was a co-investigator on ROLSES, which recorded radio waves originating from Earth-based transmitters and from the Milky Way Galaxy.

For Burns, a professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS), the event was a long time in the making. The moon, he said, is a scientific laboratory like no other.

“I heard ‘no’ for decades. ‘We can’t go back to the moon. It’s a fantasy,’” Burns said. “But the science was so exciting and important that we stuck with it. And today, it’s happening.”

Here is a sampling of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s upcoming trips to the moon:

Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA). (Courtesy photo/NASA)

Protecting astronauts from electric discharges

After ROLSES, the next moon experiment is positively electric. It will head to the moon’s Schrödinger Basin in the next decade—a nearly 200-mile-wide impact crater on the lunar far side, or the part of the moon that never faces Earth.

From there, the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Lite (LuSEE-Lite) instrument measure electrostatic forces just above the moon’s surface—the same forces that make your socks stick together in the dryer. Sudden changes in electric charge (lightning-like discharges) could pose risks to future astronauts on the moon. LuSEE-Lite consists of a single electric field sensor that will stick up more than 20 feet from the lander, as well as a suite of high- and low-frequency magnetic field sensors.

The instrument was constructed and will be operated with funding from NASA and will be delivered to the lunar surface on a future NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission. UC Berkeley is the lead with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder providing scientific expertise and key instrument hardware (Burns and David Malaspina, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder/LASP).

Tuning in to the ancient universe

A similar instrument known as LuSEE-Night will build on data from LuSEE-Lite, with a dark twist. It’s flying aboard Blue Ghost 2, the second lunar lander from the company Firefly Aerospace, which operates out of Cedar Park, Texas. (Firefly’s first lander successfully landed on the moon March 2, 2025.)

LuSEE-Night is a pathfinder radio telescope on the lunar far-side designed to explore a frequency range below 50MHz that is inaccessible from the Earth.

Blue Ghost 2 will touch down on the moon’s far side and observe radio waves emanating from space far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Burns noted that these faint signals could give scientists clues to a hidden period in the history of the cosmos called the “Dark Ages”—a time just before the first stars and galaxies formed in the early universe about 100 million years after the Big Bang.

Burns explained that the moon’s far side provides scientists with an unprecedented opportunity to view these signals, in part because the region is shielded from the radio noise of technology on Earth. LuSEE-Night is also led by UC Berkeley.

“We are carrying 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds, of batteries with us, which will allow LuSEE-Night to potentially survive on the lunar surface for two years and operate at night,” Burns said. “That’s the quiet time on the moon because there’s no noise coming from the sun.”

The LuSEE-Night instrument was constructed and is operated with funding from NASA and U.S. Department of Energy. It will be delivered to the surface of the moon as part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission CS-3, operated by Firefly Aerospace. Calibration signals will be provided by Firefly Aerospace as NASA CLPS mission CS-4.

Artist's depiction of an orbital vehicle deploying a Blue Ghost lander. (Credit: Firefly Aeropsace)

The moon's mysterious Gruithuisen Domes as seen from space. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

Getting to the bottom of the domes

Firefly’s next lander boasts not one but two instruments with involvement from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientists.

Blue Ghost 3 will head for a puzzling region of the moon known as the Gruithuisen Domes. These rounded mountains rise to nearly a mile above the moon’s surface and were formed by lava rich in silica.

Hayne explained that on Earth, silica tends to only appear in large quantities in lava formed by the churn of plate tectonics. What these silica-rich features are doing on the moon, which has no continental plates, remains a mystery.

The planetary scientist joined a team led by the University of Central Florida that is trying to answer that question. A rover known as the Lunar Vulkan Imaging Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) will detach from the Blue Ghost lander and roll around this region of the moon.

Lena Heffern, formerly a systems engineer at LASP, and Margaret Landis, a former research scientist at LASP, are co-investigators on the Lunar-VISE mission. Hayne is leading work on an infrared camera that will sit on the lander and help to identify the nearby minerals.

Additionally, LASP is performing the instrument operations and building the science data center and data processing software for the mission, and recent LASP doctoral graduate Heshani Pieris is leading the calibration of one of the Lunar-VISE camera systems.

"It's an exciting opportunity to combine measurement techniques from the Lunar-VISE instruments to understand the evolution and history of lunar volcanism at this unusual location," Landis said.

The Space and Mission Systems division of the Colorado-based company BAE Systems, formerly Ball Aerospace, is building Lunar-VISE’s science instruments.

Burns and his colleagues, meanwhile, are getting a second moon shot of sorts.

The astrophysicist previously participated in the ROLSES experiment led by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. When the Odysseus spacecraft touched down on the moon, it tipped onto its side, which limited how much data the ROLSES team was able to collect.

Now, the same researchers are launching ROLSES 2, which boasts a few improvements on the original design. The new instrument will include four antennas and, like LuSEE-Night, will collect radio waves—in this case, not just from the Milky Way but also from our own planet, moon and sun.

Burns explained that radio waves coming from Earth can tell scientists a lot about the magnetic fields that surround the globe. He hopes that the team’s data will help scientists search for potentially habitable planets beyond Earth’s solar system, what scientists call “exoplanets.”

“We know that on Earth, the magnetic field is essential for life because it shields us from dangerous radiation in space,” he said. “If we can learn more about these radio emissions, we may one day be able to measure the strength of magnetic fields around exoplanets.”

ROLSES 2 is also led by NASA Goddard in close partnership with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Scaling mountains

Hayne will take part in one more CLPS mission set to launch in 2027. Intuitive Machines’ fourth and final planned lander, which doesn’t yet have a name borrowed from Greek mythology, is heading for the region around Mons Mouton. It is one of the tallest mountains on the moon, rising to nearly 20,000 feet above the surface.

The lander will carry a camera called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System (L-CIRiS), which is similar to the camera flying aboard Blue Ghost 3. (L-CIRiS was also built by BAE Systems). The device will measure temperatures across the lunar surface, including around the shadows tucked behind boulders and inside craters. Those images could help future space explorers know where to look for water frozen into ice on the moon.

“These are measurements we’ve never been able to make before,” Hayne said.

After decades of waiting, Burns is eager for what the next few years will hold.

“This is something I tell my students—to never accept ‘no,’” he said.

The L-CIRiS instrument will map out temperatures on the moon's surface near the lunar South Pole. (Credit: LASP)

Instruments designed and built by LASP researchers have been selected for development for a future Artemis mission. The instruments will characterize the lunar dust and plasma environment around the landing site near the moon’s South Pole, seen here in a mosaic of images taken by the Clementine mission. The lunar South Pole has a large, permanently shadowed region, which is of particular interest to scientists investigating the presence of volatiles, including water ice, trapped in the lunar regolith. (Credit: NASA)

Tackling troublesome lunar dust

Instruments designed and built by LASP researchers have been selected for development for a future Artemis mission. The DUSTER (Dust and plaSma environmenT survEyoR) lunar rover will measure the plasma and dust environment at the surface of the moon to quantify the charging and lofting of fine lunar dust.

Understanding and predicting dust behavior is critical to future human activity on the moon because the dust adheres to nearly every surface—creating challenges for exploration. The lunar dust can damage mechanical joints, cover solar panels and must be kept out of human-occupied spaces because it is extremely hazardous to breathe.

LASP's Xu Wang is the principal investigator, and Mihaly Horanyi is the deputy PI. The instrument leads are Wang and Malaspina. The rover is being provided by Lunar Outpost, based in Golden, Colorado.

Beyond the story

Our space impact by the numbers:

20 �鶹��Ѱ��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 �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder on LinkedIn

Researchers will explore everything from volcanoes on the moon's surface to signals washing through our galaxy from the dawn of the universe.

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NASA selects LASP mission to study how Earth and space weather connect

Greg B Swenson — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 20:48:57 +0000

NASA selects LASP mission to study how Earth and space weather connect Greg B Swenson Thu, 06/18/2026 - 14:48

NASA has selected a mission concept led by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) to investigate the complex system of space weather that surrounds Earth, and how this system connects to our planet’s atmosphere.

This science mission will improve prediction capabilities for understanding the impacts of space weather on technology, such as GPS and low Earth orbit satellites—as well as protecting astronauts in space—and will benefit society as a whole.

NASA announced that the DAPHNE (Dynamic Atmosphere-Ionosphere Explorer) mission will enter Phase B of development, which includes planning and design for flight and mission operations.

Led by LASP researcher Aimee Merkel, DAPHNE will use identical twin satellites to study how changes in Earth’s lower atmosphere influence the upper atmosphere, where space weather is manifested. This mission has been called out as a top priority in the most recent Heliophysics Decadal Survey from the National Academy of Sciences.

"This mission has wide-ranging implications for human spaceflight and technology," said �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz. "LASP and �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder are honored to partner with NASA on such an important flight project for our country."

Each spacecraft will be equipped with three remote-sensing instruments: MIGHTI, FUVI, and PLATO. Together, the instruments will provide coordinated, multi-point measurements of neutral winds, temperature and composition in very low Earth orbit, a region where Earth’s atmosphere transitions into charged particles.

In this thin shell that surrounds our planet, the atmosphere is in constant motion, shaped by solar activity and changes in the lower atmosphere. The observations from the DAPHNE mission will incorporate data from the lower atmospheric region to advance space weather predictive capabilities.

"Scientists have long studied how space weather affects Earth, but much less is known about how Earth's lower atmosphere affects the upper atmosphere and space weather," said Merkel. "DAPHNE will fill this major gap in scientific understanding and help answer long-standing questions about how Earth interacts with our sun. The DAPHNE team is very excited to get started, and we thank NASA for the opportunity to investigate this region that is critical to modern technology and human spaceflight."

The mission is a low-risk, high-heritage, high-data-return investigation that leverages a diverse team of experts in space science research, mission management and engineering.

The mission will be subject to a confirmation review in 2027, which will assess the progress of the mission and the availability of funds. If confirmed, the total estimated cost of the mission, excluding launch, will not exceed $250 million in fiscal year 2023 dollars, with a mission launch date of no earlier than 2029.

Major partners for the mission include BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

The DAPHNE mission was proposed as a concept study in response to the DYNAMIC (Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling) mission announcement of opportunity.

Funding and management oversight for this mission is provided by the Solar Terrestrial Probes program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

NASA has selected a mission concept led by �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to investigate the complex system of space weather that surrounds Earth—and how this system connects to our planet's atmosphere.

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Artist’s rendition of the DAPHNE mission concept. The coloring represents auroras and atmospheric waves. Credit: LASP/Mary Tostanoski

NASA says farewell to MAVEN Mars mission

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:53:37 +0000

NASA says farewell to MAVEN Mars mission Megan M Rogers Wed, 06/03/2026 - 07:53

NASA

The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit at Mars and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission. The spacecraft was heard last on Dec. 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after it passed behind the Red Planet.

The MAVEN mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. The mission’s principal investigator is based at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

Read the full story from NASA.

The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution has ended after more than 11 years in orbit and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission. The MAVEN mission's principal investigator is based at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

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Using aerospace technology to study glacier melt in Greenland

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:40:32 +0000

Using aerospace technology to study glacier melt in Greenland Megan M Rogers Tue, 04/14/2026 - 07:40

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

Alia Khan is integrating field-based biogeochemical analysis with NASA's next-generation satellite sensors to quantify how biological algae blooms, mineral dust and wildfire smoke are darkening the Greenland Ice Sheet and accelerating its melt.

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Space

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