LPL Spotlight Stories

Future space tourists take in the view during a "Saturnset tour" on one of Titan's lakes of liquid methane (Image: NASA/JPL)
$3M in NASA Funding to Help Students Build CubeSats
Apollo 17 astronaut Ron Evans had to embark on a spacewalk just to retrieve a cassette of film, which recorded data from the first radar mapping instrument mounted on a spacecraft. (Photo: NASA)
A University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory student holds a bright umbrella over the spot where she found geologic contact between two different lava flows during a trip to Amboy Crater in California's Mojave Desert. (Photo: Ali Bramson)
Launched on March 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, and the first spacecraft to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. (Image: NASA)
Next year, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will use its Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism to touch the surface of an asteroid for five seconds, collecting up to 4.4 pounds of rocks and dust. The first-of-its-kind NASA mission is led by the UA, where undergraduate and graduate students are working alongside faculty and staff to make significant scientific contributions.
A page from the Rectified Lunar Atlas. (Courtesy of UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory)