The annual Geminid meteor shower could be a fun show this weekend for Coloradans weather permitting, according to a University of Colorado Boulder astronomer.

When NASA’s napping New Horizon’s spacecraft awakens later this week in preparation for its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, a University of Colorado Boulder student instrument onboard already will have been up for years.

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered an invisible shield some 7,200 miles above Earth that blocks so-called “killer electrons,” which whip around the planet at near-light speed and have been known to threaten astronauts, fry satellites and degrade space systems during intense solar storms.

CU System news release Highest honor for educators recognizes exceptional research, teaching, service DENVER – Six University of Colorado faculty members today were named Distinguished Professors, the most prestigious honor for faculty at the university. Each year, the recognition goes to faculty members who demonstrate exemplary performance in research or creative work, a record of excellence in classroom teaching and supervision of individual learning, and outstanding service to the profession, university and its affiliates.

Two NASA and one European spacecraft, including NASA’s MAVEN mission led by the University of Colorado Boulder, have gathered new information about the basic properties of a wayward comet that buzzed by Mars Oct. 19, directly detecting its effects on the Martian atmosphere.

NASA’s newest orbiter at Mars, MAVEN, took precautions to avoid harm from a dust-spewing comet that flew near Mars yesterday and is studying the flyby’s effects on the Red Planet’s atmosphere, according to University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator on the mission.

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars and produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, the mission’s principal investigator.

A team of scientists including a University of Colorado Boulder professor used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to make the most detailed global map yet of the glow from a giant, oddball planet orbiting another star, an object twice as massive as Jupiter and hot enough to melt steel.

The spacecraft for a NASA mission to probe the climate history of Mars led by the University of Colorado Boulder slid seamlessly into orbit at about 8:24 p.m. MDT on Sunday, Sept. 21, the last major hurdle of the 10-month, 442-million-mile journey.

The public is invited to attend a watch party at the University of Colorado Boulder on Sunday, Sept. 21, when NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, designed to understand past climate change on Mars, inserts itself into orbit after a 10-month journey to the planet.