Lab Notes

Hitching a ride to orbit

0
On April 23, SpaceX launched another crew of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), the third successful mission of the commercial crew transport...

Naming the stars

0
The holiday season is a peak time for companies that sell the novelty gift of “naming a star,” with a framed certificate and a...

Diving into Saturn

0
I finally arrive on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California, around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 15 to bear witness to the final gravitational dance...

Comet ATLAS shrugs

0
In late December 2019, a telescope in Hawaii operated by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) discovered a comet on its way to...

Discovering Ultima Thule

0
Four billion miles from the Earth on New Year’s Eve, a spacecraft traveling at 32,000 miles per hour zoomed past a tiny object roughly...

Blasting the planet next door

0
In September 1859, the most powerful explosion in recorded history burst from the surface of the sun, releasing more energy than a billion of...

Launching commercial spaceflight

2
Imagine boarding a brand new Boeing 747 on your way to Seattle. When you reach your destination a few hours later, after unloading the...

Boosting solar physics

0
Shortly after the financial crash of 2008, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to stimulate the economy with $787 billion in...

New Horizons at Pluto

0
In the 1960s, the Apollo missions to the moon inspired a generation of scientists and engineers to pursue careers in space exploration. On the heels of those successes, the Voyager missions to the outer solar system inspired my generation. I vividly remember the ...

Developing a NASA mission

0
Imagine spending years coming up with an exciting idea for a space telescope, proposing it to NASA, and getting approval to develop the concept...

Are we alone in the universe?

This is one of humanity’s most fundamental and persistent questions. The answer has always seemed, until recently, elusive and out of reach. But this is beginning to change. Biologists have been deepening our understanding of what kinds of environments life might ...

Unraveling misconceptions of climate change

0
To those of us living in Boulder and surrounding communities, it may come as a surprise that many people remain unconvinced that the use of fossil fuels is the main contributor to current climate change. But before diving into the discussion of the consequences of ...