LPL Spotlight Stories

Io Volcano Observer: Following the Heat and Hunting Clues to Planet Evolution

A proposed mission called Io Volcano Observer (IVO) would visit Jupiter’s moon Io, which is a true volcanic wonderland with hundreds of erupting volcanoes gushing tons of molten lava and sulfurous gases at any moment. https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/faculty/mcewen

How Microbes in Iceland Can Teach Us About Possible Life on Mars

Dr Solange Duhamel and Dr Christopher Hamilton, based at the University of Arizona, have brought together their respective expertise in environmental microbiology and planetary science to investigate how life could survive on Mars. Fascinatingly, this has been done by exploring an area in Iceland that resembles the red planet.
The descent stage holding NASA's Perseverance rover can be seen falling through the Martian atmosphere, its parachute trailing behind, in this image taken on Feb. 18, 2021, by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

UArizona-Led HiRISE Camera Helped Guide Mars Rover to the Perfect Spot

The camera also captured the descent of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

 The Very Large Telescope, or VLT, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert. VLT's instrumentation was adapted to conduct a search for planets in the Alpha Centauri system as part of the Breakthrough initiatives. This image of the VLT is painted with the colors of the sunset reflected in water on the platform. A. Ghizzi Panizza/ESO

A New Way to Look for Life-Sustaining Planets

Associate Professor Daniel Apai is a member of an international team of astronomers that developed new capabilities that make it possible to directly image planets that could potentially harbor life within the habitable zone of a neighboring star system.
This artist's concept shows the planned flight path of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft during its final flyby of asteroid Bennu, which is scheduled for April 7. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

OSIRIS-REx to Fly a Farewell Tour of Bennu

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will swoop around Bennu one more time to collect information about how the Tough-and-Go sample collection affected the asteroid before returning home.

 This artist’s concept shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft departing asteroid Bennu to begin its two-year journey back to Earth. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

UArizona-Led OSIRIS-REx Mission Plans for May Asteroid Departure

Since its launch in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled billions of miles, mapped the surface of an asteroid in unprecedented detail, and made new scientific discoveries about near-Earth asteroids. Now, it's preparing to bring a piece of asteroid Bennu home.
Created by an eruption five years ago, the Holuhraun lava flow field in Iceland is some of the newest "real estate" in the world where Christopher Hamilton and his team are testing new ways for drones and rovers to work together to explore Mars.

With $3M NASA Grant, UArizona Scientists Will Test Mars Exploration Drones in Iceland

NASA has awarded $3.1 million to Christopher Hamilton in UArizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to develop a drone that could act as a "field assistant" to a rover and explore previously inaccessible regions on Mars.

 Using high-precision brightness measurements from NASA's TESS space telescope, astronomers found that the nearby brown dwarf Luhman 16B's atmosphere is dominated by high-speed, global winds akin to Earth's jet stream system. This global circulation determines how clouds are distributed in the brown dwarf's atmosphere, giving it a striped appearance.

Striped or Spotted? Winds and Jet Streams Found on the Closest Brown Dwarf

Planetary scientists wondered if bands of winds or swirling storms dominated the atmospheres of brown dwarfs. UArizona-led research has solved the mystery.
In addition to supporting a variety of NASA planetary missions, NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Maunakea on the Big Island of Hawaii is also used to determine the composition of near-Earth objects. Credits: University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy / Michael Connelley

New Data Confirm 2020 SO to be the Upper Centaur Rocket Booster from the 1960’s

Using data collected at NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) and orbit analysis from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists have confirmed that Near-Earth Object (NEO) 2020 SO is, in fact, a 1960’s-Era Centaur rocket booster.

 This artist’s conception of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa shows a hypothesized cryovolcanic eruption, in which briny water from within the icy shell blasts into space. A new model of this process on Europa may also explain plumes on other icy bodies. Justice Blaine Wainwright

Plumes on Icy Worlds Hold Clues About What Lies Beneath

A new model shows how brine on Jupiter’s moon Europa can migrate within the icy shell to form pockets of salty water that erupt to the surface when freezing. The findings are important for the upcoming Europa Clipper mission and may explain cryovolcanic eruptions across icy bodies in the solar system.