Jay McMahon

Associate Professor Jay McMahon was featured in an article on NASA's DART mission, which successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos yesterday. The piece, in the Christian Science Monitor, was written ahead of the collision. It outlines goals of the mission as an experiment for future planetary defense from asteroids. McMahon,...

On Monday just after 5 p.m. Mountain Time, a NASA spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is set to crash and burn—on purpose. The spacecraft is aiming for a pair of asteroids orbiting around each other millions of miles from Earth: Didymos, which measures about a half-mile across,...

University of Colorado Boulder Associate Professor Jay McMahon is a participating scientist on NASA's DART, or Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission, which launched last week. Denver's 9News spoke with McMahon about the project, which aims to test asteroid deflection technology. DART will travel to and then intentionally crash into the...

Associate Professor Jay McMahon has been recognized with an Outstanding Faculty Graduate Advisor Award. The honor, bestowed by the College of Engineering and Applied Science, recognizes faculty who demonstrate exceptional advising skills and who serve as role models to other advisors. Honorees are selected based on the scores and comments...

Jay McMahon is joining a groundbreaking NASA mission to test asteroid deflection technology. McMahon, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder has been named a participating scientist in the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). DART is the first...

New findings from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission suggest that the interior of the asteroid Bennu could be weaker and less dense than its outer layers—like a crème-filled chocolate egg flying though space. The results appear in a study published today in the journal Science Advances and led by the University of...

Jay McMahon Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace Friday, Sep. 25 | 12:30 P.M. | Zoom Webinar - Registration Required Abstract: Small bodies in the solar system - both asteroids and comets - have complex dynamical environments that create unique challenges to operating spacecraft in close proximity. Future missions will desire to...

In January 2019, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting the asteroid Bennu when the spacecraft’s cameras caught something unexpected: Thousands of tiny bits of material, some just the size of marbles, began to bounce off the surface of the asteroid—like a game of ping-pong in space. Since then, many more such...

Researchers at CU Boulder have gotten front-row seats to one of the closest encounters with an asteroid in history. On Dec. 4, 2018, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft zipped to within 4.5 miles of the asteroid Bennu. This space rock has an orbit that carries...

Jay McMahon has earned a NASA early career fellowship to help ensure future missions to Mars can land safely. McMahon, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, has received a three year, $600,000 NASA Space Technology Research...