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.
 

Students working on a research project on the CU Boulder campus.

Mapping the Milky Way in a can of olive oil

May 23, 2023

Assistant Professor Meredith MacGregor and National Institute of Standards and Technology Physicist Jake Connors taught their graduate students how to build and use radio horn antennas to locate neutral hydrogen in space.

Artist's depiction of a planet covered in volcanoes

Newly discovered planet is the size of Earth, but may be covered in volcanoes

May 17, 2023

A team of astrophysicists, including two researchers from CU Boulder, have caught a glimpse of a new and rocky planet called LP 791-18d. There, temperatures on the dayside could climb to more than 250 degrees Fahrenheit, while volcanoes blast the planet's surface.

Saturn's rings partially in shadow

How old are Saturn’s rings? Far younger than once thought, according to new study

May 12, 2023

New research led by Sascha Kempf of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder finds that Saturn's rings are no more than 400 million years old. That's much younger than Saturn itself, which formed around 4.5 billion years ago.

Solar flare erupt from the sun

How 1,000 undergraduates helped solve an enduring mystery about the sun

May 9, 2023

For three years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CU Boulder students enrolled in "Experimental Physics I" spent an estimated 56,000 hours analyzing the behavior of hundreds of solar flares. Their results could help astrophysicists understand how the sun's corona reaches temperatures of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

A striking view of Mars and its smallest moon, Deimos.

New Emirates Mars Mission observations hint at origins of Mars’ mysterious moon

April 27, 2023

The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, has unveiled a series of groundbreaking observations of Mars’ smaller moon, Deimos, that reveal new details of Mars’ most mysterious moon and where it came from, as well as the Red Planet’s larger moon, Phobos.

Artist's depiction of antennas in the FarView observatory criss-crossing over the surface of the moon.

Observatory on the far side of the moon could spy on universe’s ‘Dark Ages’

April 25, 2023

As early as 2030, engineers and robots from Earth could begin construction on an astronomical observatory that would expand over 77 square miles of the moon’s surface—almost entirely using materials mined from the moon itself.

Senior NASA leaders with CU President Todd Saliman and other university officials in front of the Mariner spacecraft displayed in LASP

CU Boulder, LASP welcome NASA leaders to campus

April 21, 2023

A group of senior NASA leaders visited the CU Boulder campus where they met with CU President Todd Saliman and other university officials, and toured the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

An astronaut working with one of the experiments aboard the International Space Station.

Heart experiments to help astronauts live better in space

April 7, 2023

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are hard at work on research guided by students and researchers from CU Boulder.

Image of the sun fringed in white light as seen during an eclipse

Scientists heading to tip of Australia to observe rare eclipse

April 6, 2023

CU Boulder astrophysicists Kevin Reardon and Sarah Bruce are traveling across the globe to the fringes of Australia to witness a rare event—a total solar eclipse that will last just one minute but could help scientists answer a burning mystery about the sun.

LASP researchers over the last 75 years

LASP: 75 years of innovation in space science

April 5, 2023

The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics—CU’s oldest and highest-budget research institute and the only academic research institute in the world to have sent scientific instruments to all eight planets in the solar system, plus Pluto, the Sun and a host of moons—is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

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