Astrophysical And Planetary Sciences

At 6:51 p.m. on April 18, a rocket carrying NASA’s latest space satellite, called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), blasted off from Cape Canaveral. CU Boulder Assistant Professor Zach Berta-Thompson was there. He called the experience “terrifying but incredible.”

Researchers at CU Boulder have completed an unprecedented “dissection” of twin galaxies in the final stages of merging.

Researchers have caught a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy snacking on gas and then "burping"—not once, but twice.

The cross-campus Grand Challenge initiative this week announced the selection of three new additions to the Grand Challenge portfolio starting this fall.

After a highly successful mission, the Cassini spacecraft will give up Saturn's last secrets to CU Boulder scientists before disintegrating in the planet's dense atmosphere Sept. 15.

Tremendous amounts of soot following a massive asteroid strike 66 million years ago would have plunged Earth into darkness for nearly two years, according to a news release from NCAR.

CU Boulder program helps underserved and underrepresented students in the STEM fields gain valuable research experience for graduate school.

Three University of Colorado Boulder students are among 36 nationwide who have won 2017 Brooke Owens Fellowships for “exceptional undergraduate women” seeking careers in aviation and space exploration.

Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world.

A team of astronomers, including one from CU Boulder, used the super-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to find the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving only the smaller galaxy's nearly-naked supermassive black hole to emerge and speed away at more than 2,000 miles per second.