For 75 years, CU Boulder has been a leader in space exploration and innovation. We travel to space to monitor sea level rise, melting ice, weather patterns and more. Our researchers explore how to track and remove dangerous debris in space. We research the health of humans in space to inform medical applications for people on Earth. Learn more about the latest in space research and science at CU Boulder.
 

An artist's depiction of an early Earth bombarded by asteroids.

A new timeline of Earth’s cataclysmic past

Aug. 12, 2019

Recent research shows that our planet may have been pummeled with asteroids long before some scientists had previously thought.

Rendering of the asteroid Psyche

Can bacteria help people mine asteroids?

Aug. 1, 2019

Luis Zea and his colleagues are exploring whether a technique common on Earth, called biomining, may one day help people to extract resources in space.

An image taken from the International Space Station shows orange swaths of airglow hovering in Earth’s atmosphere

Analyzing gravity waves at the edge of space

July 29, 2019

A CU Boulder professor emeritus is working on a research project slated for the International Space Station to help us better understand and forecast conditions on the edge of space.

A mock-up of what a LunaSat might look like on the moon

Students to send hundreds of leaf-sized spacecraft to the moon

July 23, 2019

The Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) will reveal new information about the lunar surface and pave the way for human astronauts on the moon.

Lunar Ranging Retroreflector on the surface of the moon

Apollo 11's last working experiment on the moon

July 19, 2019

Fifty years after it was first laid out on the moon, the Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment, the brainchild of JILA's James Faller, is still in use.

Moon

Moon landing at 50: How we got there and what we're still learning about our celestial neighbor

July 16, 2019

Fifty years ago, a mammoth effort by hundreds of thousands of Americans culminated in Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. This week, the Brainwaves podcast looks at the history and future of lunar exploration.

Geologist Carolyn Crow investigating moon rocks at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A once-in-a-lifetime look at Apollo moon rocks

July 10, 2019

More than 50 years after humans first set foot on the moon, one CU Boulder researcher will gain access to a cache of never-before-studied lunar rocks.

Torin Clark riding an artificial gravity simulator.

Artificial gravity—without the motion sickness

July 2, 2019

Artificial gravity has long been the stuff of science fiction. Picture the wheel-shaped ships from films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Martian, imaginary craft that generate their own gravity by spinning around in space. Now, a team from CU Boulder is working to make those out-there technologies a reality.

A simulation of the level of detail that L-CIRiS's infrared camera will reveal of the moon's surface.

An infrared close up of the moon

July 1, 2019

NASA announced that it will send a new infrared camera to the moon to collect unprecedented temperature data on the boulders and shadows at the surface.

CU students in the "Medicine in Space and Surface Environments" class perform CPR on a "fallen" crewmate in the Habitat at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah.

How to save a life—on Mars

June 26, 2019

This May, in a remote part of southern Utah, 21 CU Boulder aerospace engineering students, a mix of graduate students and undergrads, became Martians.

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