LPL Spotlight Stories

UArizona Looks Toward Work on NASA’s Potential Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope

UArizona Looks Toward Work on NASA’s Potential Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope

Professor Amy Mainzer of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory will provide technical leadership for the projected Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, which will include the NEO Surveyor spacecraft.
This image shows sample site Nightingale, OSIRIS-REx’s primary sample collection site on asteroid Bennu. The image is overlaid with a graphic of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to illustrate the scale of the site. (Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

X Marks the Spot: NASA Selects Site for Asteroid Sample Collection

The OSIRIS-REx mission team evaluated data from four candidate sites in order to identify site Nightingale as the best option for the sample collection, with site Osprey named as the backup.
This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 6 was created by combining two images taken by the NavCam 1 imager onboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft: a short exposure image (1.4 ms), which shows the asteroid clearly, and a long exposure image (5 sec), which shows the particles clearly. (Photo: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin)

Explaining Bennu’s Mysterious Particle Events

NASA's OSIRIS-REx science team has identified three possible explanations for the particles that asteroid Bennu is tossing into space.
One of the greatest threats from the sun — to astronauts and the satellites that provide GPS maps, cell phone service, and internet access — are high-energy particles that erupt from the sun in bursts. (Artist impression: NASA/Princeton)

First Results from Spacecraft Exploring Sun

The sun is revealing itself in dramatic detail and shedding light on how other stars may form and behave throughout the universe. University of Arizona researchers involved in the mission report exciting findings from the Parker Solar Probe's first close encounters with our very own star.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the sun. (Image: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

Close Encounter with the Sun

Two University of Arizona researchers involved in NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission are excited about the spacecraft's first close encounters with the sun.
NASA astronaut Pete Conrad standing next to Surveyor 3 with the Apollo 12 Lunar Module Intrepid in the background. (NASA photo by Alan Bean)

UArizona Moon Researchers Helped NASA Nail Apollo 12 Pinpoint Landing

Lunar and planetary scientist Ewen Whitaker used his incomparable knowledge of lunar geography to help NASA demonstrate a pinpoint landing on the moon with Apollo 12.
An artist's conception showing spherical carbon molecules known as buckyballs coming out from a planetary nebula — material shed by a dying star. Researchers at the University of Arizona have now created these molecules under laboratory conditions thought to mimic those in their "natural" habitat in space. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Mysteries Behind Interstellar Buckyballs Finally Answered

Mimicking conditions thought to exist around dying stars, researchers discovered a mechanism that could explain why planetary nebulae are teeming with complex carbon molecules.

The Origins of Buckyballs in Space

The spectroscopic fingerprints of buckyballs have been observed in space, but questions remain about how these large molecules form. Laboratory experiments have revealed a possible mechanism.

Space Science, Research Reputation Shine in Best Global Ranking

The University of Arizona ranked No. 21 among U.S. public universities and No. 85 overall in the sixth annual "Best Global Universities" ranking, published by U.S. News & World Report.
A comet worthy of worship: An artist illustration of what centaur SW1 would look like if it became an inner solar system Jupiter-Family comet at a distance of 0.2 AU (19 million miles) from Earth. The moon is in the upper right part of the frame for scale. (Image: Heather Roper)

Beyond Jupiter, Researchers Discovered a 'Cradle of Comets'

Researchers have discovered a region just beyond Jupiter that acts as a "comet gateway," funneling icy bodies from deep space into the inner solar system, where they can become regular visitors of Earth's neighborhood.