UA Space Grant Success Stories

The Art of Planetary Science: A Virtual Odyssey. Online from Sept. 25-27. Promotional Banner.

The Art of Planetary Science: A Virtual Odyssey

For International Observe the Moon Night on Saturday, 9/26 this event will host a special live stream of the historical Moon documentary, Desert Mo on, followed by a live Q& A session with producer and former (2013) UA Space Grant Fellow, Jason Davis broadcast from the Flandrau Science Center & Eos Planetarium.

Former UA Graduate Fellow (2002-04), Theresa Crimmins, writes an opinion piece in the Arizona Daily Star.

Take a moment of your day to read Theresa's important opinion piece on moving forward with tough conversations on race.

Artist's illustration of complex organic molecules in space. Image: NASA/Jenny Mottar

Dr. Yancy Shirley, UA Space Grant Assistant Director, publishes paper in The Astrophysical Journal

Using UArizona's radio telescope on Kitt Peak, a team of astronomers probed a vast, cosmic cloud of gas and dust for traces of organic molecules that form the building blocks for life. The team found that such molecules appear hundreds of thousands of years before stars even begin to form.

OSIRIS-REx sample site diagram over an image of asteroid Bennu's surface

UA/NASA Space Grant mentors, Dante Lauretta and Jason Davis, discuss their current work on the OSRIS-REx mission

After a year of circling close to near-Earth asteroid Bennu, the OSIRIS REx spacecraft is almost ready to dip down and collect a surface sample.

A grant from the Army Research Office will fund an extension of the Arizona Supersonic Wind Tunnel, making it capable of conducting experiments in transonic conditions. Stuart "Alex" Craig (left) and Jesse Little received the funding through the U.S. Department of Defense's Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority-Serving Institutions Science Program.

UA Space Grant Mentors, Stuart Craig and Jesse Little, featured in UA News discussing current research on wind tunnels

The University of Arizona College of Engineering wind tunnels are getting $1.7 million in upgrades, which will boost the capabilities of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in high-speed aerodynamics research.

Credit: International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration / Georgia Tech-Schmidt / Dichek ITGC researchers Britney Schmidt and Andy Mullen retrieve the robotic submarine Icefin after its last dive to the seafloor foundations of Thwaites Glacier. Icefin was engineered in Schmidt's lab at Georgia Tech.

Check out current research by 2003 UA Space Grant Intern, Britney Schmidt, on robotic submarines!

An underwater vehicle from the Georgia Institute of Technology makes its first-ever visit to Thwaites Glacier’s grounding zone as part of the historic International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.

Nabila Huq and Derek Vardon in research lab

2011 UA/NASA Space Grant Intern, Nabila Huq (right), now researches potential bioblendstock for diesel fuel

A novel oxygenate molecule that can be produced from biomass shows promise for use as a blend for diesel fuel, according to researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

iShowcase Demo of VR glasses

UA/NASA Space Grant Graduate Fellow, Charles Parrish, at iShowcase

UA/NASA Space Grant Graduate Fellow, Charles Parrish, demoes a component of his Space Grant Outreach Fellowship work on accessible, immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences.

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)

2019-20 UA/NASA Communications Intern, Rachel Abraham, discusses complex carbon molecules in nebulae with UA Researchers

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