Space

23 years after Columbia disaster, one-of-a-kind 'plasma tunnel' recreates extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:29:02 +0000

23 years after Columbia disaster, one-of-a-kind 'plasma tunnel' recreates extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry Daniel William… Mon, 02/02/2026 - 10:29

Daniel Strain , Nicholas Goda

For astronauts, coming back to Earth is one of the most dangerous parts of any mission. A new research facility addresses that challenge by creating streams of gas that flow at thousands of miles per hour and burn at temperatures of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.

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Astronauts are going back to the moon. Planetary scientist talks about what we can learn

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:21:24 +0000

Astronauts are going back to the moon. Planetary scientist talks about what we can learn Daniel William… Mon, 02/02/2026 - 10:21

A rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft rolls out for the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Credit: NASA)

Update: NASA announced Feb. 3 that it is aiming to launch the Artemis II mission in March 2026.

This week, four U.S. astronauts are slated to begin their history-making journey to the moon and back. The astronauts, the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission, will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as early as Friday, Feb. 6. From there, they’ll fly on the Orion spacecraft to the moon, circle it from high above, then return to Earth.

Artemis II marks the first time that humans will leave the safety of Earth’s orbit since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972. It’s a precursor to Artemis III, which plans to land humans on the lunar surface once more.

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Paul Hayne, a planetary scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder, has spent years exploring the moon’s mysteries. He’s investigated, for example, whether the cold, dark craters that dot the lunar surface might harbor stores of ice—which astronauts could mine for drinking water or to make rocket fuel, splitting apart the molecules within to create hydrogen gas.

CU Boulder Today spoke with the lunar researcher about the biggest unanswered questions about the moon, and what it can tell us about humanity’s place in the solar system.

“I'm really interested in the terra incognita of the moon, the places that are so dark and inaccessible that they're very difficult to explore,” said Hayne, an associate professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder.

Why is it important for humans to go back to the moon?

The moon records what's going on in our space environment throughout its history. Unlike Earth, which has experienced weather and erosion that has removed the history of asteroid and comet impacts, the moon preserves all that history over billions of years.

The moon, in a way, is the history book of the solar system.

Paul Hayne

Photo of the Orion spacecraft during NASA's Artemis I mission in 2022, which traveled to the moon and back without astronauts aboard. (Credit: NASA)

How will Artemis be different than the Apollo missions?

Artemis is an opportunity to go to one of the least explored places on the moon, near the moon's South Pole where there are deep, dark shadows inside craters that have never seen sunlight—at least not in the last several billion years.

Because of those dark shadows, the craters are extremely cold. Those permanently shadowed regions are the solar system's garbage collector. Anything that gets collected there doesn't go anywhere for billions of years. This is a treasure trove, scientifically, of things like water and carbon that that we can go and access.

Humans have been studying the moon for a long time. Is there still a lot we don’t know about it?

One of the big-picture science questions we want to answer through the Artemis program is: How did the moon form? This gets at the heart of some of the questions we have about the whole solar system: How did Earth form? How did the planets form?

We think that the moon formed through a giant impact—a Mars-sized protoplanet that collided with Earth very early in its history. It may have stripped off a huge chunk of Earth's interior, and then that material coalesced into what became the moon.

There are some big questions about that history that we need samples from different parts of the moon to answer.

How does your own research connect to Artemis?

A key aspect of the Artemis program is the synergy between science and exploration. NASA is not only sending astronauts through the Artemis II, III and IV missions and beyond, but it’s also sending precursor missions that are using robotic explorers in the form of landers and rovers carrying scientific experiments.

The scientific experiments that I'm involved with include things like searching for ice at the poles of the moon. We have an infrared camera developed here in Boulder, Colorado, that will be deployed near the moon's South Pole. It's called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System, or L-CIRiS. This is a heat-sensing camera that will look for the coldest places where we might identify the conditions for ice to exist.

How is this research critical for humans actually staying on the moon?

The moon, without an atmosphere, has extreme temperature variations—from higher than boiling temperatures in the sunlight to just 15 or 20 degrees above absolute zero in the deep, dark shadows. These are extreme temperature ranges that anything on the surface, including astronauts, will have to contend with. We’re studying the thermal environments by using instruments like L-CIRiS.

Why does space exploration inspire you?

It really takes the combined efforts of our whole society to do these kinds of things. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ‘We choose to go to the moon not because it's easy, but because it's hard.’

Doing so demonstrates that we do have the ability as a society to do things that are challenging—not just for the astronauts, but also for all the people, supporting them in this kind of grand project. I think that shows that we can do other hard things as a society.

CU Boulder Today regularly publishes Q&As on news topics through the lens of scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission are slated to launch for the moon in March. CU Boulder researcher Paul Hayne talks about why it's important for humans to return to the moon—and search for water in its shadowy craters.

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What are the little red dots deep in space?

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:33:51 +0000

What are the little red dots deep in space? Megan M Rogers Tue, 01/27/2026 - 09:33

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

CU researchers worked with an international team to uncover more about the mysterious objects detected by the James Webb Space Telescope.

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A 'generationally defining moment': 40 years later, NASA alum reflects on Challenger disaster

Amber Carlson — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:08:29 +0000

A 'generationally defining moment': 40 years later, NASA alum reflects on Challenger disaster Amber Carlson Mon, 01/26/2026 - 10:08

Amber Carlson

The Challenger space shuttle is transported to the launch pad in December 1985, about a month before the fateful launch. (Credit: NASA)

On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA’s Challenger space shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds after launching from the Kennedy Space Center. All seven crew members aboard, including CU Boulder alumnus Ellison Onizuka (AeroEngr ’69), tragically lost their lives.

David Klaus, professor emeritus from CU Boulder’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, started his career with NASA and was a shuttle launch control engineer at the time (although he did not work the Challenger mission).

CU Boulder Today spoke with Klaus about his memories of that day, the legacy of the crew and crucial lessons learned from the tragedy.

Where were you on the day of the Challenger incident?

NASA had plans to start launching Air Force payloads off the West Coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in July of 1986. I was training to be on the Vandenberg launch team, and I would have been on the Challenger launch console, but I had just gone out to California for some work out there. So I was at the Vandenberg launch site when the Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

We happened to be sitting in the launch control center at Vandenberg. We pretty much saw what everybody else watching TV saw, although we could hear the comms loops. We could hear what was going on.

When did you realize that something was wrong?

All I saw was that infamous image with the solid rocket boosters going off in two directions. I was pretty new in the game at that point, so I didn't have a lot of insight. But I was sort of in disbelief at first. You don't really comprehend what you're seeing. It just doesn't look right. Something looks wrong. Your brain’s trying to process what's going on. But we realized pretty quickly that this was a bad event.

What caused the shuttle to break apart?

The actual root cause of the failure was the O-rings (gaskets) that keep the propellant pressure contained inside the two rockets. It was really cold in Florida that day, and my understanding is that the cold weather made the seals brittle. Because they were brittle, they allowed gas pressure to escape, and the escaping gas pressure is ultimately what caused the destruction of the vehicle.

The Challenger crew members are pictured in November 1985, about two months before the tragedy. Back row, from left: Ellison Onizuka, Sharon McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis and Judy Resnik. Front row, from left: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee and Ron McNair. (Credit: NASA)

What lessons were learned from the Challenger?

For every NASA mission, when something goes wrong or is unexpected, it gets documented as ‘lessons learned’, and you work to make sure it doesn't happen again. You either change operational requirements, or you change the design, or both.

After the Challenger accident, for example, NASA has had tighter weather criteria for launch. And they added heater strips around the O-ring joints on later flights as part of a redesign. So both operational and design changes were made.

It's a high-risk endeavor to start with, putting people into space. And I think it became very apparent at that point. The Challenger was the first in-flight fatal accident that had occurred in NASA's history. In the space domain, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, and those are the ones that can cause the biggest problem. But once they happen, they're not unknown anymore, and now you've got something you can design toward.

How do you view the legacy of the Challenger crew?

The Challenger incident was one of those generationally defining moments. It was a reminder that life is risky. If you're pushing the envelope, you accept the risks, and you do the best you can to mitigate those risks. But you can't ever make them go away. So the crew’s legacy was maybe a heightened awareness of the risk of space flight, but also the importance of continuing to go to space even when catastrophic events do occur.

Looking back 40 years later, what stands out the most about the Challenger?

The technical lessons learned made me start thinking more about risk analysis. It's one thing to design a vehicle that can meet all the needs and do the job, but once you get to that point in the design process, you now go back and start looking at it and saying, ‘What can go wrong? What happens if it goes wrong, and what can we do about it if it does go wrong?’

The human aspect, of course, goes without saying. These were some pretty outstanding individuals, and their lives were tragically cut short. But on the other hand, I don't think they would have stepped aside. Everyone understood that there was risk. The degree of risk might have been debatable, but anytime you're launching people into space—anytime you're walking across the street, for that matter—there's a degree of risk that you accept in your life to do what you want to do.

David Klaus

If you were speaking to young engineers now, what would you want them to understand?

When you're the one designing the rockets or the habitats or any of the infrastructure, pay attention to the details. Don't take shortcuts. Try to think beyond just ‘Here's an answer that's good enough.’

Consider risk analysis from the very beginning of the design. Think about all the things that can go wrong and try to design something that is what we call either fault tolerant or redundant. So, if something breaks, can the system continue working? Or do you have another way that you can provide that function in place of the thing that broke?

Think about what needs to be done and break it down into the functions that have to be accomplished to make that happen. Then brainstorm different ideas—not just one solution, but as many as you can come up with. And then work to find an optimal balance of risk and complexity from that process.

A former NASA engineer and retired aerospace engineering professor reflects on lessons learned from the space shuttle tragedy.

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Leading hands-on Earth research planning for life on Mars

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 20:08:16 +0000

Leading hands-on Earth research planning for life on Mars Megan M Rogers Fri, 01/23/2026 - 13:08

Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

CU Boulder carried out major research at the Mars Desert Research Station, a facility that gives scientists and engineers the opportunity to conduct complex experiments in a Mars-simulation habitat.

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New study examines a gravitational wave mystery

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:26:52 +0000

New study examines a gravitational wave mystery Daniel William… Wed, 01/07/2026 - 11:26

Daniel Strain

Image collected by the Hubble Space Telescope of an object called NGC 2623, which is made up of two galaxies in the final stages of merging together. (Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA)

Scientists at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder may have solved a pressing mystery about the universe’s gravitational wave background.

That’s the name for the ripples in space and time that move constantly through the cosmos and “jiggle us almost like Jell-O,” according to CU Boulder astrophysicist Julie Comerford.

The study, published recently in “The Astrophysical Journal,” reveals new insights into the evolution of the universe—namely, how smaller galaxies may have coalesced over billions of years to form larger and more complex galaxies like the Milky Way.

Comerford explained that, at any one time in the universe, countless galaxies are in the process of merging.

Each of those galaxies has an aptly named supermassive black hole at its center. As galaxies merge, these black holes spin around each other, whipping in circles until they eventually smack together. The resulting collisions create waves in space and time that are so subtle humans never feel them.

Artist's depiction of the gravitational wave background. (Credit: NANOGrav collaboration; Aurore Simonet)

“You can picture lots of people in a swimming pool,” said Comerford, lead author of the new study and professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder. “They’re all creating their own waves, and the waves overlap. That’s what the gravitational wave background is like.”

In 2023, several international collaborations, including the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) experiment, reported that they had detected the gravitational wave background for the first time.

There was just one problem: Based on the groups’ measurements, those waves were much larger than scientists had estimated. No one knew why.

In the new study, Comerford and study co-author Joseph Simon, a former postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder, may have found the explanation.

Using observations of real galaxies and computer simulations the team discovered something that researchers hadn’t accounted for: When a smaller supermassive black hole merges with a larger one, the smaller black hole seems to gain a lot of mass.

That extra mass makes a difference. Just like swimmers doing cannonballs in a pool, larger supermassive black holes produce larger gravitational waves.

“We had a prediction for what the gravitational wave background should be, and what NANOGrav found was larger than expected,” Comerford said. “It was a surprise and a fun new puzzle to figure out.”

Growth spurts

Supermassive black holes, like galaxies themselves, come in all sorts of sizes. Some of these celestial objects are truly humongous, with a mass equal to billions of Earth’s suns. Others are still big, but slightly less so, with a mass millions of times larger than the sun.

Julie Comerford

For years, many scientists studying the gravitational wave background didn’t believe those smaller black holes mattered, Comerford said. They were too little, the thinking went, to make a meaningful contribution to the gravitational wave background.

Comerford and Simon weren’t so sure.

In part, that’s because galaxy mergers can be messy affairs. When two galaxies come together, gas from those galaxies begins to funnel toward the supermassive black holes at their centers. This gas forms a doughnut-shaped cloud outside the black holes spiraling around each other. Some of that gas falls back into the black holes and makes them larger in the process.

But previous simulations suggested something surprising: The black holes in a merging pair may not grow at the same pace.

“The more massive black hole sits closer to the center of the doughnut where there isn’t much gas,” Comerford said. “The smaller black hole is further out, so it’s closer to where the gas is.”

The beginning

That difference in growth rates, or what the scientists call “preferential accretion,” could matter a lot.

In the current study, Comerford designed a detailed set of equations capturing the physics of how galaxies merge. The group then adjusted those equations to make smaller black holes grow 10% more than larger ones.

That single tweak was enough to make estimates of the gravitational wave background line up with measurements from the NANOGrav experiment.

“They start out little, but because the little ones grow the most, they shouldn’t be discounted,” Comerford said.

She noted that the study doesn’t completely solve the mystery: Her team has launched a new effort to observe real galaxies in the act of merging to see if their physics line up with what the simulations found.

The effort, she said, is part of a larger push to understand some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. That includes how “primordial” galaxies at the dawn of the universe, which were tiny and made up mostly of gas, may have built the gigantic black holes that exist today.

“I’ve spent my career studying supermassive black holes, and we don’t even know how they form,” Comerford said.

Ripples in space and time constantly churn through the universe, forming what's called the "gravitational wave background." A new study examines why these waves are so much bigger than scientists once predicted.

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LASP instruments target trip to the moon aboard NASA's Artemis IV mission

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:00:06 +0000

LASP instruments target trip to the moon aboard NASA's Artemis IV mission Megan M Rogers Thu, 12/11/2025 - 09:00

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has been awarded a $25 million NASA grant to develop instruments that will be deployed on the lunar surface by astronauts during the Artemis IV mission to the moon's south pole.

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Mars spacecraft observes comet from outside our solar system

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 19:55:20 +0000

Mars spacecraft observes comet from outside our solar system Daniel William… Mon, 12/08/2025 - 12:55

Daniel Strain , Willow Reed

Artist's concept of NASA's MAVEN spacrcraft in orbit around Mars. (Credit: NASA/GSFC)

This summer, scientists spotted an incredibly rare visitor to Earth’s solar system—a comet, now known as 3I/ATLAS, that entered our solar system from the galaxy beyond and is zipping past the sun at a speed of about 137,000 miles per hour.

Now, a team of researchers from the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder has gotten an unprecedented opportunity to observe this visitor from interstellar space.

The team captured images of 3I/ATLAS over 10 days in September and October using NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, which is now orbiting Mars. The observations were part of a larger NASA effort to capture images of the comet from a fleet of spacecraft spread across the solar system.

Image of the comet 3I/ATLAS taken by MAVEN in October 2025. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/LASP/CU Boulder)

Map of 3I/ATLAS's trajectory through the solar system. (Credit: NASA)

“This is the biggest and brightest object from outside our solar system that’s ever been observed,” said Shannon Curry, a planetary scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder who leads the MAVEN mission. “The idea that we could be observing it at this level of detail is really incredible.”

She’s not alone in her excitement: 3I/ATLAS is only the third comet or similar icy body researchers have ever seen flying through solar system from interstellar space.

The comet, which scientists estimate could measure as much as 3.5 miles across, will make its closest brush with Earth on Dec. 19. It will pass within 167 million miles of our planet—too far to see with the naked eye.

NASA released MAVEN’s images, along with data from other spacecraft, in November. The MAVEN team is still analyzing these data, but they may yield a treasure trove of information about 3I/ATLAS, including some of the main ingredients that make up the comet.

“It comes from somewhere else, and that’s why we’re so excited about it,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a Nov. 19 media event. “It’s only the third time that we’ve been able to identify and track something coming from outside our own solar system.”

A view from Mars

Curry noted that MAVEN was never designed to observe objects like comets.

The spacecraft launched in 2014 to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. But in fall 2025, it was in the right time and place to see 3I/ATLAS.

On Oct. 3, the comet passed Mars at a distance of roughly 18.6 million miles. At the time, Earth was on the other side of the sun from Mars, blocking our planet’s view of 3I/ATLAS.

A team at Lockheed Martin in Colorado, which operates MAVEN, positioned the spacecraft so that it was pointing in the comet’s direction. The researchers then began collecting images using an instrument called the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer (IUVS), designed by a team from LASP.

“Our engineering teams enjoy a challenge, and our spacecraft are incredibly versatile, allowing us to support science far beyond the spacecrafts’ initial mission profiles,” said Sandy Freund, mission operations manager for Deep Space Exploration at Lockheed Martin.

Image taken by MAVEN of 3I/ATLAS showing hydrogen emitted from different sources: the comet (dim spot on the far left), hydrogen from Mars (bright emission on the right), and hydrogen flowing through our solar system between the planets (dim emission in the middle). (Credit: NASA/Goddard/LASP/CU Boulder)

A comet from beyond

The resulting images show a bright object pummeling through space surrounded by a haze of gas and dust—almost like a fuzzy dandelion ball in space.

They may not look like much on the surface, but these pixels carry a wealth of information about the comet.

Image taken of 3I/ATLAS by the Hubble Space Telescope in July 2025. (Credit: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt/UCLA; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale/STScI)

“There was a lot of adrenaline when the data came down and we saw what we’d captured,” said Justin Deighan, a research scientist at LASP and deputy principal investigator for MAVEN. “Every measurement we can make of this comet is precious and helps to open up new understanding of interstellar objects.”

Curry explained that 3I/ATLAS is made up mostly of ice. As the comet flies through the solar system, radiation from the sun cooks off some of that ice. In the process, 3I/ATLAS emits water through hydrogen and oxygen in various forms into space.

These elements become part of the comet’s coma, or the wide halo of wispy gases and dust that surround its body.

MAVEN’s images will allow scientists to identify many of the ingredients in that halo—bringing researchers as close as they can to traveling to 3I/ATLAS and seeing what it’s made of. It’s the only spacecraft capable of measuring how fast the comet is losing water to space, Curry said.

She added that, despite speculation among some people that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien spacecraft, data from multiple NASA instruments show that it’s clearly a comet.

“Everything about this object tells us it’s a comet,” she said. “There’s nothing to indicate that its trajectory, size and evolution could be produced in any other way.”

Curry sees the new observations as a testament to the MAVEN scientists and engineers and the spacecraft itself—which has been collecting invaluable scientific information at Mars since 2014

“You the MAVEN team show up to do science and can still produce exciting and groundbreaking results no matter what the challenges are,” she said. “That demonstrates the inherent value of an observatory like MAVEN.”

The MAVEN mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder, which is also responsible for managing science operations and public outreach and communications. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN mission. Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provides navigation and Deep Space Network support.

In July 2025, scientists spotted a comet speeding into our solar system from the galaxy beyond. Researchers from CU Boulder have gotten an unprecedented opportunity to capture images of this interstellar visitor.

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New research on flares from a hot-tempered star could inform search for habitable planets

Daniel William Strain — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 22:27:50 +0000

New research on flares from a hot-tempered star could inform search for habitable planets Daniel William… Thu, 12/04/2025 - 15:27

Daniel Strain

Artist's concept of a planet called TRAPPIST-1d passing in front of the star TRAPPIST-1. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted/STScI)

Like a toddler right before naptime, TRAPPIST-1 is a small yet moody star. This little star, which sits in the constellation Aquarius about 40 light-years from Earth, spits out bursts of energy known as “flares” about six times a day.

New research led by CU Boulder takes the deepest look yet at the physics behind TRAPPIST-1’s celestial temper tantrums. The team’s findings could help scientists search for habitable planets beyond Earth’s solar system.

The researchers used observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and computer simulations, or “models,” to understand how TRAPPIST-1 produces its flares—first building up magnetic energy, then releasing it to kick off a chain of events that launches radiation deep into space. The results could help scientists unravel how the star has shaped its nearby planets, potentially in drastic ways.

The team published its findings Nov. 20 in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters.”

Artist's depiction of TRAPPIST-1 with its seven Earth-like planets in orbit. In a Goldilocks situation, the innermost planets are likely too hot to host liquid water, while the outermost planets are too cold. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Artist's concept of the planet TRAPPIST-1e, which may carry hints of an Earth-like atmosphere. (Credit: NASA)

“We think that the innermost TRAPPIST-1 planets are just bare, denuded rocks because the star has blown away their atmospheres,” said Ward Howard, lead author of the new study and a NASA Sagan Fellow in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at CU Boulder.

It’s a highlight for the little star, which has attracted a lot of attention from scientists in recent years.

TRAPPIST-1 has less than 10% the mass of the sun and is only a bit larger than the planet Jupiter. But it also hosts seven Earth-sized planets, three of which lie in what researchers call the “habitable zone”—a region of space that may have just the right temperatures for liquid water to form on the surface of a planet.

There’s just one big problem: Scientists have struggled to get a good look at those planets because of the star’s volatile activity.

“When scientists had just started observing TRAPPIST-1, we hadn’t anticipated the majority of our transits would be obstructed by these large flares,” Howard said.

The challenge of studying flares

Studying a flare is a bit like investigating the scene of a crime. Scientists can see the aftermath of a flare—in this case, a big flash. The Webb telescope, for example, records how much infrared radiation, or heat, a star releases during a flare.

But that same space telescope can’t tell you whodunnit.

Howard said that all stars, from TRAPPIST-1 to our own sun, are surrounded by magnetic fields. These magnetic fields twist and bend, forming something that looks like a bowl of noodles. They also shape the plasma, an ultra-hot gas made up of charged particles, in a star’s outer atmosphere.

Sometimes those magnetic fields can get a little too twisted. When that happens, the fields snap, and a beam of electrons hurtles through the star’s atmosphere. That beam is the culprit behind a flare.

“Those beams will continue down into the stellar atmosphere where they smack into the plasma and heat it up,” Howard said. “And once you have a nice hot plasma, it glows.”

To solve the mystery of TRAPPIST-1’s flares, Howard and his colleagues analyzed data from six flares collected by the Webb telescope in 2022 and 2023.

The researchers turned to a new grid of models that describe the physics of flares developed by Adam Kowalski, an associate professor in APS who is also a co-author of the current study.

The models use a series of complex equations to, essentially, wind back time for these flares. If the researchers spot a flare coming from TRAPPIST-1, they can use the models to predict what kind of electron beam kicked off that flare in the first place.

Wimpy flares

Knowing about those electron beams may open up a range of opportunities for scientists studying TRAPPIST-1, Howard said.

For a start, his team discovered that TRAPPIST-1’s flares seem to be surprisingly weak. Most flares from similar stars, by comparison, are produced by electron beams about 10 times stronger.

“These flares were a little wimpier than we expected,” Howard said.

He added that the same electron beams that produce the infrared light seen by Webb also generate a wide range of other kind of radiation—from visible light to ultraviolet radiation and powerful X-rays. The group’s research will allow scientists to explore that full range of radiation coming from TRAPPIST-1’s flares. This information could help researchers understand how these events might alter the atmospheric chemistry of nearby planets.

Scientists suspect that one of the planets in TRAPPIST-1’s habitable zone, named TRAPPIST-1e, may carry a hint of an Earth-like atmosphere—a possible sign of habitability.

“If we can simulate these events using a computer model, we can reverse engineer how a flare might influence the radiation environment around each of these planets,” Howard said.

Co-authors of the new study include researchers at the �Թ�� of Chicago; Johns Hopkins �Թ��; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; �Թ�� of Oxford; and Université de Montréal.

A new study takes a close look at TRAPPIST-1, a little star roughly 40 light-years from our sun that hosts seven Earth-sized planets.

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Postdoc working on AI for astronauts

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:32:39 +0000

Postdoc working on AI for astronauts Megan M Rogers Wed, 12/03/2025 - 09:32

Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

Ulubilge Ulusoy is advancing the science of artificial intelligence to help astronauts on future missions to Mars.

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Space

23 years after Columbia disaster, one-of-a-kind 'plasma tunnel' recreates extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry

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