LPL Spotlight Stories

Vishnu Reddy: "The question is: How prepared are we for the next cosmic threat?" (Photo: Bob Demers/UANews)

Asteroid Flyby to Help NASA Observation

By Daniel Stolte, University Communications - July 27, 2017 For the first time, NASA will use an actual space rock
Images and data from the UA’s Mars HiRISE camera are being used to help visually impaired students gain interest in scientific exploration and study.

UA Trains Visually Impaired Youth for STEM

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications - July 5, 2017 Using images and data from the University of Arizona's Mars
A yet to be discovered, unseen "planetary mass object" makes its existence known by ruffling the orbital plane of distant Kuiper Belt objects, according to research by Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The object is pictured on a wide orbit far beyond Pluto in this artist's illustration. (Image: Heather Roper/LPL)

UA Scientists and the Curious Case of the Warped Kuiper Belt

By Daniel Stolte, University Communications - June 20, 2017 An unknown, unseen "planetary mass object" may lurk in the outer

UA to Host Special Events Tied to Asteroid Day

University Communications - June 13, 2017 A presentation at the University of Arizona on June 27 will feature six experts
The Amazon River and its watershed — the largest river system on Earth — cover 2.4 million square miles.

Amazonia's Future Will Be Jeopardized by Dams

By Mari N. Jensen, UA College of Science, and Rachel Griess, University of Texas, Austin - June 14, 2017 Building
Undergraduate students Ryan Bronson, Sameep Arora, Damon Marco Colpo, Lindsie Jeffries, and Evelyn Hunten peer out from a telescope they built to track satellites.

Students Build Telescopes to Track Satellites

By Emily Litvack, UA Research, Dicovery and Innovation - May 22, 2017 Why should you buy what you can make
Close-up of a focused ion beam.

So You Want to Analyze Asteroid Dirt

By Emily Litvack - May 18, 2017 In the year 2023, priceless property of the American people will land somewhere
This impact occurred between December 2003 and November 2005. The main crater itself is only 23 meters across, but the impact event created markings spreading more than a kilometer outward. The interior stands out as blue because the impact excavated a cavity into rocks below the surface that has a different composition than the overlying dust. Some distant dark-toned spots and streaks were created when ejecta from the main crater flew out and re-impacted the surface, producing chains of secondary craters.

HiRISE Brings the Red Planet's Beauty to Your Coffee Table

By Daniel Stolte, University Communications - May 15, 2017 A gorgeous, sumptuous tome chock-full of stunning images taken by the
UA alumnus Dante Lauretta led the design, build and launch of a spacecraft to Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid, to collect a sample and return that sample to Earth. (Photo: Symeon Platts/UA)

Alumni Achievement Award for Dante Lauretta

By UA Alumni Association - May 9, 2017 Dante Lauretta, leader of the University of Arizona's biggest space mission, will
An artist’s rendering of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s survey pattern during its Earth-Trojan asteroid search (not to scale). The search occurs Feb. 9-20 as the spacecraft transits the Earth’s L4 Lagrangian region. (Illustration: Heather Roper/UA)

Surveying the Scenery 90 Million Miles From Earth

By Daniel Stolte/UA News and Erin Morton/LPL - February 9, 2017 A NASA spacecraft has begun its search for an