Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences

As hot as a pizza oven and dry as a desert

Anonymous — Fri, 24 May 2024 19:09:12 +0000

As hot as a pizza oven and dry as a desert Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/24/2024 - 13:09

Eryn Cangi

Venus is losing water faster than previously thought—here’s what that could mean for the early planet’s habitability.

Today, the atmosphere of our neighbor planet Venus is as hot as a pizza oven and drier than the driest desert on Earth – but it wasn’t always that way.

Billions of years ago, Venus had as much water as Earth does today. If that water was ever liquid, Venus may have once been habitable.

Over time, that water has nearly all been lost. Figuring out how, when and why Venus lost its water helps planetary scientists like me understand what makes a planet habitable — or what can make a habitable planet transform into an uninhabitable world.

Scientists have theories explaining why most of that water disappeared, but more water has disappeared than they predicted.

Eryn Cangi is a NASA FINESST Fellow in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

In a May 2024 study, my colleagues and I revealed a new water removal process that has gone unnoticed for decades, but could explain this water loss mystery.

Energy balance and early loss of water

The solar system has a habitable zone – a narrow ring around the Sun in which planets can have liquid water on their surface. Earth is in the middle, Mars is outside on the too-cold side, and Venus is outside on the too-hot side. Where a planet sits on this habitability spectrum depends on how much energy the planet gets from the Sun, as well as how much energy the planet radiates away.

The theory of how most of Venus’ water loss occurred is tied to this energy balance. On early Venus, sunlight broke up water in its atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen. Atmospheric hydrogen heats up a planet — like having too many blankets on the bed in summer.

When the planet gets too hot, it throws off the blanket: the hydrogen escapes in a flow out to space, a process called hydrodynamic escape. This process removed one of the key ingredients for water from Venus. It’s not known exactly when this process occurred, but it was likely within the first billion years or so.

Hydrodynamic escape stopped after most hydrogen was removed, but a little bit of hydrogen was left behind. It’s like dumping out a water bottle – there will still be a few drops left at the bottom. These leftover drops can’t escape in the same way. There must be some other process still at work on Venus that continues to remove hydrogen.

Little reactions can make a big difference

Our new study reveals that an overlooked chemical reaction in Venus’ atmosphere can produce enough escaping hydrogen to close the gap between the expected and observed water loss.

Here’s how it works. In the atmosphere, gaseous HCO⁺ molecules, which are made up of one atom each of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen and have a positive charge, combine with negatively charged electrons, since opposites attract.

But when the HCO⁺ and the electrons react, the HCO⁺ breaks up into a neutral carbon monoxide molecule, CO, and a hydrogen atom, H. This process energizes the hydrogen atom, which can then exceed the planet’s escape velocity and escape to space. The whole reaction is called HCO⁺ dissociative recombination, but we like to call it DR for short.

Water is the original source of hydrogen on Venus, so DR effectively dries out the planet. DR has likely happened throughout the history of Venus, and our work shows it probably still continues into the present day. It doubles the amount of hydrogen escape previously calculated by planetary scientists, upending our understanding of present-day hydrogen escape on Venus.

Understanding Venus with data, models and Mars

To study DR on Venus we used both computer modeling and data analysis.

The modeling actually began as a Mars project. My Ph.D. research involved exploring what sort of conditions made planets habitable for life. Mars also used to have water, though less than Venus, and also lost most of it to space.

To understand martian hydrogen escape, I developed a computational model of the Mars atmosphere that simulates Mars’ atmospheric chemistry. Despite being very different planets, Mars and Venus actually have similar upper atmospheres, so my colleagues and I were able to extend the model to Venus.

A colorized photo of Venus taken Feb. 14, 1990, from a distance of almost 1.7 million miles, about 6 days after NASA's Galileo made it closest approach to the planet. (Photo: NASA/JPL)

We found that HCO⁺ dissociative recombination produces lots of escaping hydrogen in both planets’ atmospheres, which agreed with measurements taken by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission, a satellite orbiting Mars.

Having data collected in Venus’ atmosphere to back up the model would be valuable, but previous missions to Venus haven’t measured HCO⁺ – not because it’s not there, but because they weren’t designed to detect it. They did, however, measure the reactants that produce HCO⁺ in Venus’ atmosphere.

By analyzing measurements made by Pioneer Venus, a combination orbiter and probe mission that studied Venus from 1978-1992, and using our knowledge of chemistry, we demonstrated that HCO⁺ should be present in the atmosphere in similar amounts to our model.

Follow the water

Our work has filled in a piece of the puzzle of how water is lost from planets, which affects how habitable a planet is for life. We’ve learned that water loss happens not just in one fell swoop, but over time through a combination of methods.

Faster hydrogen loss today via DR means that less time is required overall to remove the remaining water from Venus. This means that if oceans were ever present on early Venus, they could have been present for longer than scientists thought before water loss through hydrodynamic escape and DR started. This would provide more time for possible life to arise. Our results don’t mean oceans or life were definitely present, though – answering that question will require lots more science over many years.

There is also a need for new Venus missions and observations. Future Venus missions will provide some atmospheric measurements, but they won’t focus on the upper atmosphere where most HCO⁺ dissociative recombination takes place. A future Venus upper atmosphere mission, similar to the MAVEN mission at Mars, could vastly expand everyone’s knowledge of how terrestrial planets’ atmospheres form and evolve over time.

With the technological advancements of recent decades and a flourishing new interest in Venus, now is an excellent time to turn our eyes toward Earth’s sister planet.

Eryn Cangi is a NASA FINESST Fellow in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Venus is losing water faster than previously thought—here’s what that could mean for the early planet’s habitability.

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder astrophysicist elected to National Academy of Sciences

Anonymous — Thu, 09 May 2024 16:59:00 +0000

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder astrophysicist elected to National Academy of Sciences Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/09/2024 - 10:59

Distinguished Professor Mitch Begelman of astrophysical and planetary sciences is recognized for ‘distinguished and continuing achievements in original research’

Mitch Begelman, distinguished professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy has announced.

Begelman is one of 120 U.S. members and 24 international members who were recognized this year for their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Begelman's research primarily explores the frontiers of theoretical and high-energy astrophysics, focusing on the dynamics of black holes and their energy outputs. His pioneering work has significantly advanced the understanding of how black holes influence their surrounding environments and contribute to the broader structure of the universe.

In 2022, for instance, he was part of a team of researchers who observed a sudden change in the magnetic field lines in a class of black holes known as active galaxy nuclei.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder scientist Mitch Begelman is the author of Turn Right at Orion:Travels Through the Cosmos and co-author of Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe.

Begelman said he was gratified by the recognition: “It's an especially nice honor, because it's a recognition by peers who themselves have been honored for their contributions to science. It's also an invitation to help the academy further its mission to advise the government on science policy and planning, and I look forward to playing my part in that responsibility.”

David Brain, associate professor and chair of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, said the recognition was well deserved: “He is an excellent scientist, more than worthy of recognition by the National Academy. Importantly for the APS department, he is also an excellent professor,” Brain said, adding:

“He enthusiastically teaches large undergraduate courses on black holes and astrophysics, and is very active in service to the department, including serving as department chair twice. He manages to do all of this while still regularly producing high-quality science with his students, postdocs and colleagues.”

Begelman is the author of Turn Right at Orion:Travels Through the Cosmos and co-author of Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe. He has been an author on more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Begelman holds a PhD in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Cambridge and degrees in physics from Harvard University. He joined the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder faculty in 1982 and has served as chair of his department. Begelman is also a fellow of JILA, a joint institute of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Among previous recognition that Begelman has received are the following: The ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Board of Regents bestowed the title of distinguished professor on him in 2020, and the College of Arts and Sciences named him a professor of distinction in 2018. He was listed as a Highly Cited Researcher, a measure of a researcher’s influence, in 2001.

He won the Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarly and Creative Work in 2000, and he won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998.

Begelman is the 46^th ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the first being selected in 1945. Other ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder members include its Nobel laureates Carl Wieman, Eric Cornell, John Hall, David Wineland and Thomas Cech.

Those elected to the academy this year bring the total number of active members to 2,617 and the total number of international members to 537. International members are nonvoting members of the academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

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Distinguished Professor Mitch Begelman of astrophysical and planetary sciences is recognized for ‘distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.'

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Astronomer honored for heavenly solar-eclipse photos

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 21:38:31 +0000

Astronomer honored for heavenly solar-eclipse photos Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/07/2024 - 14:38

Bradley Worrell

The images were taken with a device that Doug Duncan invented to capture eclipses with a smartphone

Doug Duncan, an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and the former director of the Fiske Planetarium, was recently among a select few recognized by the International Astronomical Union for their photos of the heavens.

The IAU’s Office of Astronomy for Education awarded prizes to about 30 people worldwide, including Duncan. The IAU said it selected the winners after receiving nearly 430 entries from 40 countries and territories worldwide for its third-annual astrophotography contest, which was judged by an international panel of astrophotographers and astronomy teachers.

Doug Duncan, an emeritus faculty member in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, made this award-winning solar eclipse photo with his smartphone.

“The images of the sky captured by enthusiast stargazers can leave one in awe, but they can also be important teaching tools,” the IAU notes. It adds that the organization “sought out images of the motions of the heavens: from the Sun’s path across the sky through the year to the movement of the stars in the night sky and the changing phases of Venus.”

Duncan received an honorable mention award for his photos of a solar eclipse, taken with his smartphone. Images taken with smartphones or other mobile devices was one of five IAU photo award categories.

Under normal circumstances, attempting to capture a solar eclipse with an unaided smartphone camera is a very bad idea, Duncan says, noting the sun’s rays can harm a smartphone internal workings in the same way that looking at the sun for extended periods can damage people’s retinas.

Jason Johnson made this award-winning photo of the northern lights on a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Alumni Association Roaming Buffaloes trip organized by Doug Duncan. (Photo: Jason Johnson)

However, that was not an issue for Duncan, thanks to his use of the Solar Snap—a product he designed to safely capture photos of solar eclipses with a special eclipse-viewing lens that attaches to the smartphone’s camera lens and software that controls a camera’s zoom, focus and exposure. After about two years in research and development by Duncan, the Solar Snap is marketed by Bartlett, Tennessee-based American Paper Optics, which he says has sold about 50,000 Solar Snaps.

As for winning the astrophography award from the IAU, Duncan says, “It was a nice to be recognized. I’m particularly happy for the recognition it brings to the Solar Snap, which is the first invention I followed from the idea through completion. And people who use it are quite happy with it, so that makes me feel good.”

Duncan adds that he is just as happy that one of winning photos in the smartphones categories was taken by a participant in a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Alumni Association Roaming Buffaloes trip that he organized last year to view the northern lights. Duncan said he was happy to give some photo tips to Jason Johnson, who won an IAU award for his photo "Northern Lights Color."

Meanwhile, Duncan is gearing up for his next Roaming Buffaloes trip, to witness a full eclipse next month in Texas, an event he is calling “Totality Over Texas.”

And after that?

“Well, I was thinking of retiring,” he says with a chuckle. “But the next total eclipse I’m focused on is in the summer of 2026 in Spain, pretty close to Barcelona and Valencia. And if an eclipse is happening in a really beautiful place, that’s when I’m very tempted to go.”

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The images were taken with a device that Doug Duncan invented to capture eclipses with a smartphone.

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Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez to give 53rd Gamow lecture

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:10:38 +0000

Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez to give 53rd Gamow lecture Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/21/2024 - 10:10

Astrophysicist who confirmed black hole at galaxy’s center to speak March 5 at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder

Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

Ghez, Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA, shared half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel of the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrea Ghez, 2020 Nobel Prize winner in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder. (Photo: The Nobel Foundation)

The pair were recognized by the Nobel committee for their discovery of a “supermassive” black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Ghez, head of UCLA’s Galactic Center Group, solved the question, what exactly is “Sagittarius A*,” which was first detected as a mysterious radio signal in 1933.

“I see being a scientist as really fundamentally being a puzzle-solver,” Ghez said in 2021. “Putting together the pieces, trying to find the evidence, trying to see the bigger picture.”

If you go

What: 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture

Who: Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 5

Where: Macky Auditorium, University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus

Tickets: Free and open to the public

Learn more

She helped develop a new technology to correct the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere. Gathering data from the world’s largest telescope system, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, she and her team continue to plumb the depths of the galactic center 26,000 light years distant.

While Albert Einstein’s epochal work on relativity remains the best description of how gravity works, Ghez says it can’t account for gravity inside a black hole. Through what she calls “extreme astrophysics,” she seeks to go where the pioneering astrophysicist could not.

“Einstein’s right for now,” she said. “However, his theory is showing vulnerability. … At some point we will need to move … to a more comprehensive theory of gravity.”

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and author of a 2006 children’s book, “You Can Be a Woman Astronomer,” Ghez is widely recognized as a role model for young women.

“Seeing people who look like you, or are different from you, succeeding shows you that there’s an opportunity,” she said.

Top image: An artist's concept illustrating a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of fthe Sun. (Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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Astrophysicist who confirmed black hole at galaxy’s center to speak March 5 at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

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The most outstanding solar-flare eruptions are not always the most influential

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:42:05 +0000

The most outstanding solar-flare eruptions are not always the most influential Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 09:42

Blake Puscher

A recent ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder study suggests that confined flares are more efficient at heating plasma and producing ionizing radiation than comparable eruptive flares

While many studies have compared the magnetic properties of confined and eruptive solar flares, few have considered the thermodynamic properties of confined flares and even fewer in comparison to eruptive ones.

Maria Kazachenko, an assistant professor in the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, is one of the few to have explored this subject. In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal and featured on AAS Nova, she conducted a study quantifying the thermodynamic and magnetic properties of hundreds of solar flares.

Solar flares are enormous explosions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun. They happen when energy stored in magnetic fields, usually above sunspots, is suddenly released. Some flares involve a coronal mass ejection (CME), in which a huge amount of charged particles, or plasma, is flung out.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder researcher Maria Kazachenko found that confined solar flares, or flares with no associated coronal mass ejection, may be more efficient at accelerating particles and therefore at producing ionizing radiation as well.

Some of the study’s results confirm the findings of earlier inquiries. However, the paper also includes new information suggesting that confined flares, or flares with no associated CME, may be more efficient at accelerating particles and therefore at producing ionizing radiation as well.

What is a solar flare?

Solar flares are caused by the Sun’s magnetic fields, which are strongest in the dark areas called sunspots. When inactive, these fields look like loops. However, when the subsurface flows of the Sun begin to shear and twist the sunspots that they are tied to, the magnetic fields become twisted as well.

“You could imagine it like a rubber band that you start twisting,” Kazachenko explains. “At some point, you cut it, then … energy will get released and you will get a snap on your hand.”

Like the elastic energy of the rubber band is released when it is cut, a fraction of the magnetic energy of the Sun is released during a process called magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection can take different forms, but “one of the simplest configurations,” Kazachenko says, “is when you have two oppositely directed field lines being pushed against each other … the magnetic fields could suddenly change their configuration and release a huge amount of energy, similar to rubber bands that get cut all of a sudden.”

The free magnetic energy that is released during magnetic reconnection is stored in plasma currents. Electric currents produce magnetic fields, as seen in electromagnets, and charged particles moving within the Sun’s plasma function similarly.

Confined and eruptive flares

While some solar flares are associated with CMEs, where plasma is ejected from the solar atmosphere and into space, others are not. If a solar flare is associated with a CME, it is considered eruptive; if it doesn’t have an associated CME, it is considered confined. The difference between the two goes deeper than that, however, because the mechanisms that determine whether a flare is confined or eruptive may also decide how quickly the magnetic fields will reconnect and how much hard X-ray and gamma ray radiation it will emit.

As their name suggests, confined flares are unable to escape the Sun’s atmosphere because of constraining influences. These influences, known as strapping fields, are also magnetic. For this reason, active regions with more magnetic flux also have stronger strapping fields and are therefore less likely to be eruptive.

An Oct. 2, 2014, solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The solar flare is the bright flash of light at top and a burst of solar material erupting into space is just to the right of it. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

According to Kazachenko, this explains why the confined flares that she studied had higher temperatures and underwent reconnection more quickly than eruptive flares of the same peak X-ray flux: “In confined flares, you have reconnection happening lower because you have a very strong strapping field of the active region that doesn’t allow the structure to go up … the fields are stronger lower down, so reconnection proceeds much faster.”

While the significance of faster reconnection may not be immediately obvious, the research paper explains, “As higher reconnection rates lead to more accelerated ions and electrons, large confined flares could be more efficient at producing ionizing electromagnetic radiation than eruptive flares.”

This is not to say that more energy is released during the reconnection of a confined flare; in fact, eruptive flares have the same amount of reconnected flux as confined flares. Rather, because energy is released more quickly in confined flares, they may accelerate ions and electrons from the Sun’s plasma more efficiently.

Space weather in this solar system and beyond

When it comes to space weather, CMEs and the geomagnetic storms they can cause often get the most attention. This is for a good reason: While it is rare for CMEs to reach Earth, the consequences are dire when they do.

In the worst-case scenario, a geomagnetic storm would damage or destroy electrical transmission equipment, causing blackouts on a large scale. Additionally, such a storm would disrupt certain types of communication, damage satellite hardware, and expose astronauts and high-altitude aviators to potentially lethal radiation. While these are only predictions, evidence for them is based in part on the geomagnetic storm of 1859, which had pronounced effects, causing sparking and fires in telegraph stations.

Research like Kazachenko’s contributes to a broader understanding of how solar flares work, which may one day allow scientists to predict when they will happen more accurately and therefore avoid the worst consequences of a geomagnetic storm by giving people time to take preventative measures. However, her studies have broader implications as well.

A mid-level solar flare captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory June 22, 2015. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

“What happens on other stars?” Kazachenko asks. “Are there flares there? Are there CMEs there? From recent studies, it seems that there are thousands of flares there, but the CMEs, the coronal mass ejections, are very hard to determine.”

While it is possible that stars like the Sun regularly undergo CMEs and that scientists and researchers have simply been unable to detect most of them, current evidence suggests that confined flares play a larger role in the space weather of other solar systems than they do in this one. For this reason, the seemingly less impactful type of solar flare may determine whether exoplanets are habitable—a major interest to astronomers looking for exoplanets that are suitable for colonization.

“So, it’s a very fundamental question, both … for our equipment’s safety, but also for understanding other planets,” Kazachenko says.

Future inquiry

While Kazachenko has discovered a unique property of confined solar flares, there is still work to be done, she says. Her study suggests that confined flares reconnect magnetic fields faster and potentially accelerate charged particles more efficiently than eruptive ones, but the properties of these particles are outside its scope.

There should be a follow-up study, Kazachenko says, “where you really look at the statistical population of particles’ acceleration in both groups of flares … but that’s where I think the future lies: looking not just at one singular event in high detail, but benefiting from these amazing observations that we now have from many different satellites flying there, like the new satellite launched by NASA and the European Space Agency called Solar Orbiter.”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFT7ATLQQx8]

Top image: A solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at 8:12 p.m. EDT Oct. 1, 2015. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

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A recent ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder study suggests that confined flares are more efficient at heating plasma and producing ionizing radiation than comparable eruptive flares.

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Lunar science is entering a new active phase, with a study of solar wind and the universe’s dark ages

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 22:37:17 +0000

Lunar science is entering a new active phase, with a study of solar wind and the universe’s dark ages Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/05/2024 - 15:37

Jack Burns

For the first time since 1972, NASA is putting science experiments on the Moon in 2024. And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility. As parts of several projects launching this year, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the south pole and the far side of the Moon.

NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, or CLPS, will use uncrewed landers to conduct NASA’s first science experiments from the Moon in over 50 years. The CLPS program differs from past space programs. Rather than NASA building the landers and operating the program, commercial companies will do so in a public-private partnership. NASA identified about a dozen companies to serve as vendors for landers that will go to the Moon.

CLPS will send science payloads to the Moon in conjunction with the Artemis program’s crewed missions.

The dark, far side of the Moon is the perfect place to conduct radio astronomy. AP Photo/Rick BowmerJack Burns, University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder

NASA buys space on these landers for science payloads to fly to the Moon, and the companies design, build and insure the landers, as well as contract with rocket companies for the launches. Unlike in the past, NASA is one of the customers and not the sole driver.

CLPS launches

The first two CLPS payloads are scheduled to launch during the first two months of 2024. There’s the Astrobotics payload, which launched Jan. 8 before experiencing a fuel issue that cut its journey to the Moon short. Next, there’s the Intuitive Machines payload, with a launch scheduled for mid-February. NASA has also planned a few additional landings – about two or three per year – for each of the next few years.

I’m a radio astronomer and co-investigator on NASA’s ROLSES program, otherwise known as Radiowave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath. ROLSES was built by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and is led by Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy.

The ROLSES instrument will launch with Intuitive Machines in February. Between ROLSES and another mission scheduled for the lunar far side in two years, LuSEE-Night, our teams will land NASA’s first two radio telescopes on the Moon by 2026.

Radio telescopes on the Moon

The Moon – particularly the far side of the Moon – is an ideal place to do radio astronomy and study signals from extraterrestrial objects such as the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy. On Earth, the ionosphere, which contains Earth’s magnetic field, distorts and absorbs radio signals below the FM band. These signals might get scrambled or may not even make it to the surface of the Earth.

On Earth, there are also TV signals, satellite broadcasts and defense radar systems making noise. To do higher sensitivity observations, you have to go into space, away from Earth.

The Moon is what scientists call tidally locked. One side of the Moon is always facing the Earth – the “man in the Moon” side – and the other side, the far side, always faces away from the Earth. The Moon has no ionosphere, and with about 2,000 miles of rock between the Earth and the far side of the Moon, there’s no interference. It’s radio quiet.

For our first mission with ROLSES, launching in February 2024, we will collect data about environmental conditions on the Moon near its south pole. On the Moon’s surface, solar wind directly strikes the lunar surface and creates a charged gas, called a plasma. Electrons lift off the negatively charged surface to form a highly ionized gas.

This doesn’t happen on Earth because the magnetic field deflects the solar wind. But there’s no global magnetic field on the Moon. With a low frequency radio telescope like ROLSES, we’ll be able to measure that plasma for the first time, which could help scientists figure out how to keep astronauts safe on the Moon.

When astronauts walk around on the surface of the Moon, they’ll pick up different charges. It’s like walking across the carpet with your socks on – when you reach for a doorknob, a spark can come out of your finger. The same kind of discharge happens on the Moon from the charged gas, but it’s potentially more harmful to astronauts.

Solar and exoplanet radio emissions

Our team is also going to use ROLSES to look at the Sun. The Sun’s surface releases shock waves that send out highly energetic particles and low radio frequency emissions. We’ll use the radio telescopes to measure these emissions and to see bursts of low-frequency radio waves from shock waves within the solar wind.

We’re also going to examine the Earth from the surface of the Moon and use that process as a template for looking at radio emissions from exoplanets that may harbor life in other star systems.

Magnetic fields are important for life because they shield the planet’s surface from the solar/stellar wind.

In the future, our team hopes to use specialized arrays of antennas on the far side of the Moon to observe nearby stellar systems that are known to have exoplanets. If we detect the same kind of radio emissions that come from Earth, this will tell us that the planet has a magnetic field. And we can measure the strength of the magnetic field to figure out whether it’s strong enough to shield life.

Cosmology on the Moon

The Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment at Night, or LuSEE-Night, will fly in early 2026 to the far side of the Moon. LuSEE-Night marks scientists’ first attempt to do cosmology on the Moon.

LuSEE-Night is a novel collaboration between NASA and the Department of Energy. Data will be sent back to Earth using a communications satellite in lunar orbit, Lunar Pathfinder, which is funded by the European Space Agency.

Since the far side of the Moon is uniquely radio quiet, it’s the best place to do cosmological observations. During the two weeks of lunar night that happen every 14 days, there’s no emission coming from the Sun, and there’s no ionosphere.

We hope to study an unexplored part of the early universe called the dark ages. The dark ages refer to before and just after the formation of the very first stars and galaxies in the universe, which is beyond what the James Webb Space Telescope can study.

During the dark ages, the universe was less than 100 million years old – today the universe is 13.7 billion years old. The universe was full of hydrogen during the dark ages. That hydrogen radiates through the universe at low radio frequencies, and when new stars turn on, they ionize the hydrogen, producing a radio signature in the spectrum. Our team hopes to measure that signal and learn about how the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe formed.

There’s also a lot of potential new physics that we can study in this last unexplored cosmological epoch in the universe. We will investigate the nature of dark matter and early dark energy and test our fundamental models of physics and cosmology in an unexplored age.

That process is going to start in 2026 with the LuSEE-Night mission, which is both a fundamental physics experiment and a cosmology experiment.

Jack Burns, Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Grad pondered death by black hole and found a life’s work

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 20:40:54 +0000

Grad pondered death by black hole and found a life’s work Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/18/2023 - 13:40

Rachel Sauer

College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate Abby Hartley embraces the complementary relationship between science and art

Some children gaze up in wonder at the boundless night sky and the universe of stars scattered in it—counting them, wishing on them, seeing shapes in them and weaving fantastical stories.

But not Abby Hartley. Abby gazed up and pondered death by black hole.

What if they (Abby uses they/them pronouns) fell into one of the massive and mysterious objects? What is the math underlying spaghettification? (Don’t ask.) (Actually, do ask: It’s the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects—including people—falling into black holes.) Would they be grateful for the deeper understanding of time dilation—or the phenomenon of time passing at different rates for different observers—as they were drawn farther and farther into the black hole?

Abby Hartley, the College of Arts and Sciences fall 2023 outstanding graduate, first became interested in astrophysics by pondering death by black hole.

So, Abby pursued an astronomy and astrophysics education at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder to get answers. Named the College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate for the fall 2023 semester, they are graduating this week with their honors thesis, “The First Quiescent Galaxies in TNG300," already published in an academic journal.

“Abby is a brilliant, hard-working, organized and frighteningly mature young scientist,” notes Erica Nelson, a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder assistant professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences and Abby’s research mentor and thesis advisor. “They are already operating at the level of a senior graduate student. I have no doubt that Abby will be a leader in the field.”

Which is a profoundly meaningful recognition of their hard work and expression of confidence in all that they have yet to achieve, but here’s what Abby considers a crowning accomplishment from the previous three and a half years: When Abby published their first research paper—yes, first, meaning there’s more than one—their mom proofread it before publication and their dad printed it out after. And like the proud parents they are, they stuck it on the refrigerator.

“My dad even highlighted some parts,” Abby recalls with a laugh. “He said, ‘I don’t totally understand all of it, but it’s so cool.’ Just knowing that I’ve always had that support from my family and friends has been so important. It’s a big part of why I’ve been able to accomplish what I have so far.”

Wanting to know more math

Speaking of Abby’s dad, he gets a decent amount of the credit for Abby’s first steps into science. An avid fan of science himself, he shared his passion for it by passing along the books he’d read to his adolescent child. Abby was the kid in middle school clutching a copy of The Elegant Universe and wishing they knew more math.

It wasn’t all science, though. Abby also cultivated a deep love for writing and art, nurtured by a voracious appetite for science fiction, and found as much fulfillment in pens and drawing paper as they found in the depths of differential geometry and tensor calculus.

For a long time, though, Abby thought it had to be one or the other—that declaring a major in astrophysics meant relegating art to the thing they did at home if they had time.

There was no particular moment when Abby realized that art and science can exist in symbiosis—as hand in glove rather than as two parallel but untouching tracks—but studying relativity helped.

“Initially, the rules of math and physics can seem pretty rigid,” Abby says. “But when you get to relativity, things bend a little bit more. Things are a little more fluid, and that’s been really exciting to me.”

So, while studying extragalactic astronomy as a member of Erica Nelson’s research group, Abby also tapped back into their love for art, designing an astrophysics art outreach project mentored by Zachory Berta-Thompson, a professor of astrophysics. As part of their project, Abby created digital illustrations highlighting the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics; several are currently featured on the digital screens in common spaces in the Duane Physics building.

Abby Hartley's art highlighting the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics includes Aomawa Shields, a University of California Irvine professor and one of Abby's heroes.

“Too many times, I’ve found myself to be the only non-male audience member in a seminar or presenter at a student talk series,” Abby says. “This inequity can be disheartening, but it has never dulled my passion for science. My goal as an astrophysicist is to help humanity unravel the mathematical mysteries of the cosmos, and to show other young scientists from historically underrepresented groups that they, too, belong in this field.

“We are all multifaceted human beings, and we shouldn’t feel pressured to stifle one passion to pursue a career in another. I was a scientist when I gave talks about my research into the first galaxies to stop forming stars in a cosmological simulation, but I was also a scientist when I painted a space-themed mural on the wall of a cat cafe.”

Abby contacted some of the scientists they featured in their art, including Jessica Mink and Aomawa Shields, and heard back from them, “so I got to talk with some of my personal heroes in astrophysics, which has been pretty amazing,” Abby says.

Pursue creative outlets

For their thesis research, Abby—whose educational path has focused on theoretical astrophysics—considered their scientific progression that began with black holes, extended to extragalactic astronomy and landed in quiescent galaxies, or galaxies that stop forming stars.

“They have dust, so in theory they should be perpetually creating stars,” Abby says. “Why aren’t they?

Using simulations from the IlustrisTNG project, a suite of cosmological galaxy-formation simulations, Abby and their research colleagues predicted that the first quiescent galaxies located by the James Webb Space Telescope will host massive black holes.

Abby Hartley defended their thesis on Halloween and, to emphasize the fact that science is fun, dressed as Howl Pendragon for the occasion.

During their research, Abby contacted noted astrophysicist Lars Hernquist at Harvard University, who became a study co-author and invited them to present their paper at Harvard. Another of Abby’s favorite memories of their studies is practicing their presentation at 2 a.m. with their mom, after going to a Beyonce concert several hours earlier, then flying to Massachusetts later that morning to present at Harvard.

Because science should be fun, Abby says, and because they defended their thesis on Halloween, they dressed as Howl Pendragon from Howl’s Moving Castle to do so and invited their thesis committee members to come in costume as well (one member came in a Starfleet uniform from Star Trek).

“I think that’s probably one of the most important things I’ve learned, that science is challenging and exciting and fun,” Abby says.

Last week, Abby submitted 11 graduate school applications and hopes to begin graduate studies next fall, which the ultimate goal of becoming a university professor and researcher. In the meantime, they will continue working with Nelson as a full-time researcher studying brand-new James Webb Space Telescope data. The one bummer is, due to scheduling conflicts, needing to give up a beloved job as a part-time barista and shelter worker at Purrfect Pause cat café in Boulder. That’s where they painted the space-themed mural, which features their cat, Oreo.

So, if Abby could offer advice to anyone considering a leap into science, they would “encourage other students to pursue their creative outlets alongside their technical research, so that no one feels like they have to leave a part of themselves behind to do scientific work.”

Abby Hartley creates digital art highlighting the the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics

College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate Abby Hartley embraces the complementary relationship between science and art.

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Searching shadowed lunar landscapes for water

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 22:55:13 +0000

Searching shadowed lunar landscapes for water Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/15/2023 - 15:55

Paul Hayne

Scientists suspect there’s ice hiding on the Moon, and a host of missions from the U.S. and beyond are searching for it

Building a space station on the Moon might seem like something out of a science fiction movie, but each new lunar mission is bringing that idea closer to reality. Scientists are homing in on potential lunar ice reservoirs in permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. These are key to setting up any sort of sustainable lunar infrastructure.

In late August 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the lunar surface in the south polar region, which scientists suspect may harbor ice. This landing marked a significant milestone not only for India but for the scientific community at large.

For planetary scientists like me, measurements from instruments onboard Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander and its small, six-wheeled rover Pragyan provide a tantalizing up-close glimpse of the parts of the Moon most likely to contain ice. Earlier observations have shown ice is present in some permanently shadowed regions, but estimates vary widely regarding the amount, form and distribution of these ice deposits.

Paul Hayne is an assistant professor in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

Polar ice deposits

My team at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has a goal of understanding where water on the Moon came from. Comets or asteroids crashing into the Moon are options, as are volcanic activity and solar wind.

Each of these events leaves behind a distinctive chemical fingerprint, so if we can see those fingerprints, we might be able to trace them to the source of water. For example, sulfur is expected in higher amounts in lunar ice deposits if volcanic activity rather than comets created the ice.

Like water, sulfur is a “volatile” element on the Moon, because on the lunar surface it’s not very stable. It’s easily vaporized and lost to space. Given its temperamental nature, sulfur is expected to accumulate only in the colder parts of the Moon.

While the Vikram lander didn’t land in a permanently shadowed region, it measured the temperature at a high southern latitude of 69.37°S and was able to identify sulfur in soil grains on the lunar surface. The sulfur measurement is intriguing because sulfur may point toward the source of the Moon’s water.

So, scientists can use temperature as a way of finding where volatiles like these may end up. Temperature measurements from Chandrayaan-3 could allow scientists to test models of volatile stability and figure out how recently the sulfur may have accumulated at the landing site.

Tools for discovery

Vikram and Pragyan are the newest in a series of spacecraft that have helped scientists study water on the Moon. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2009 and has spent the past several years observing the Moon from orbit. I’m a co-investigator on LRO, and I use its data to study the distribution, form and abundance of water on the lunar poles.

Both India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter and LRO have allowed my colleagues and me to use ultraviolet and near-infrared observations to identify ice in the permanently shadowed regions by measuring the chemical fingerprints of water. We’ve definitively detected water ice in some of these regions inside the coldest shadows at the lunar poles, but we’re still not sure why the ice isn’t more widespread.

Some dark craters on the Moon (shown in blue) never get light and researchers think these areas could contain ice. (Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

On Mercury, by contrast, the permanently shadowed regions are practically overflowing with ice. For several years, scientists have recognized the need to get down on the surface and make more detailed measurements of lunar volatiles. With its sulfur detections, the Vikram lander has now taken the first tentative steps as part of a larger exploration program.

Future lunar missions

NASA has its sights set on the lunar south pole. Leading up to the Artemis III mission to deploy astronauts to investigate ice on the surface, the Commercial Lunar Payloads Services program will send multiple landers and rovers to search for ice starting later in 2023.

While uncertainty surrounds the timeline of Artemis launches, the first crewed mission, Artemis II, is on track for a late 2024 or early 2025 launch, with a looping trajectory passing behind the Moon’s far side and back to Earth.

The Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System, of which I’m the principal investigator, is an infrared camera that will take temperature measurements and study the surface composition of the Moon.

Dubbed L-CIRiS, this camera recently underwent its final review before delivery to NASA, and the completed flight instrument will be prepared to launch on a commercial lander in late 2026.

Prior to L-CIRiS, the VIPER rover mission is planned to launch in late 2024 to the lunar south polar region, where it will carry instruments to search for ice in micro-cold traps. These tiny shadows, some no larger than a penny, are hypothesized to contain a significant amount of water and are more accessible than the larger PSRs.

One long-term goal of L-CIRiS and NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program is to find a suitable place for a long-term, sustainable lunar station. Astronauts could stay at this station, potentially similar to the one at McMurdo station in Antarctica, but it would need to be somewhat self-sufficient to be economically viable. Water is extremely expensive to ship to the Moon, hence locating the station near ice reservoirs is a must.

During the Artemis III mission, NASA astronauts will use the information gathered by the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program and other missions, including Chandrayaan-3, to assess the best locations to collect samples. Chandrayaan-3 and L-CIRiS’s measurements of temperature and composition are like those that will be needed for Artemis to succeed. Cooperation among space agencies young and old is thus becoming a key feature of a long-term, sustainable human presence on the Moon.

Paul Hayne is an assistant professor in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists suspect there’s ice hiding on the Moon, and a host of missions from the U.S. and beyond are searching for it.

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Dragons, the universe and everything: finding self through science and fantasy

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 16:40:27 +0000

Dragons, the universe and everything: finding self through science and fantasy Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/25/2023 - 10:40

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman joins ‘The Ampersand’ podcast for a discussion about identity and discovery

Listen to The Ampersand

When she’s not mapping tertiary craters on the moon, Mikayla Huffman might be found on the battlefield, clad in armor and swinging a sword as tall as she is.

Her foes? A horde of pink brains skittering on taloned legs through acrid vapors around pools of lava. An ominous tendril emerges from the nearest brain, and Mikayla yells, “Get out of here, I got this!”

But in a flash of light, the battlefield disappears, and now Mikayla is at the end of a hallway of doors, each one labeled with what’s behind it. She stops in front of a particular door labeled simply “The Universe.”

"This is the most important one," she says. "It's where all of our journeys begin and end. It's what holds us together."

Mikayla Huffman is a PhD student in astrophysical and planetary sciences at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

She cracks it open and steps inside.

Mikayla Huffman is a leader and a question-asker. This particular alchemy has led her into fantastical realms as a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master and into the galaxy as a University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder PhD student in astrophysical and planetary sciences.

She recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on "The Ampersand,” the college podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

In a free-wheeling discussion, excerpted below, Huffman and Randall talked about overcoming science gatekeeping, making lunar discoveries and finding identity in realms where dragons fly. Click the link above to hear the entire conversation.

Huffman: I had a pretty rough experience the summer after my freshman year of undergrad, where I applied for a physics internship. I had good grades, so I got a phone interview with an unnamed chief engineer at large corporation.

He got on the phone and was asking me all these questions about physics history. And I hadn't taken a physics history class yet. And his tone changed immediately when I said I went to a liberal arts college. He was like, "Have you taken multi-variable calculus yet? Have you taken quantum mechanics?"

Randall: Checklist came out.

Huffman: Yeah, and I'm like, I'm a freshman. And then he started saying, "Are you sure you even wanna be a scientist? Like, do you know that atoms are made of protons and neutrons? Do you know what an electric field is?" Like, totally dismissive. And for a really long time, I was like, oh my God, I'm not good enough to be a scientist, 'cause this guy…

Host Erika Randall (left) and Mikayla Huffman discuss everything from gatekeeping in science to world-building in fantasy.

Randall: You took it as a critique of you?

Huffman: Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't know that that was complete nonsense that he was saying. Oh, and then he was like, "I'm not gonna give you the job, but you can come and meet the person I do give it to.” So, I came and met the guy, and it was a 14-year-old boy.

Randall: Hold the phone.

Huffman: I know.

Randall: I'm not gonna give you the job, but…

Huffman: Yep. I know, I know. Totally nuts. But because I was, you know, a young, impressionable undergrad, I was like, oh man, I am not cut out for this. And it was only when I talked to female mentors in the field—I had a great pre-major advisor, Patricia Valley, and she was like, "Why would he say that to you?" And I was like, "Yeah, why would he say that to me?" That's nonsense.

And that's when I started staying in the community. But I did pivot from pure physics to planetary science, which does have more women in it because of that.

Randall: So now that is a spark lit in you. That is a charge. And I felt even just looking at your materials, the way that you take out a lot of jargon so that folks can be present with the work. It's how I learned about tertiary craters.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: And I just, that was such a point of access. And so, for you, was this a turning point in your career, where you said, "Oh, I've gotta do things differently," or had you been working towards that already?

Huffman: Absolutely. So, part of it was, you know, that really sparked in me, I don't want this to happen to other early career women. Because if you lose gender minorities, racial minorities, out of science, you also lose the discoveries they would have made, you know what I mean? I think a big part of science is pulling others up into the field. And to do that, I need to excel. So, I made sure that I was in a place to excel so that I can mentor other gender minorities into the field.

Randall: So now here you are, you're in this field, and you honestly, I really did get lost in your research. What you have accomplished, that you got, well, they're not officially named, but I wanna talk about Wallace and Gromit.

Huffman: Yeah, absolutely.

Randall: Okay, so not just because they're great "Ampersand" characters, and I love them and have seen all of the things, but do you, you were the first. This is a new discovery that you have made, as you were transitioning into coming into your PhD, about a tertiary crater on the moon, that because of the way you math, the way you think and the patience you have, and then, are you gonna get to name it?

Huffman: Yeah, so let's talk about that. First of all, let's define what tertiary craters are.

Randall: Okay, I'm gonna let you do that.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman has mapped more than 6,000 seconary craters on the moon's surface.

Huffman: Oh yeah, for sure. When a big rock comes down from space, or a big chunk of ice, and hits the ground, it makes a hole. That's called a primary crater. That's the thing that you probably think about.

But when that happens, you throw out a lot of ejecta, a lot of ejected material, which can re-impact the surface, creating secondary craters.

Randall: And it gets us confused about time.

Huffman: Yes, so this is useful, but also not useful. It's not useful because the number of primary craters is pretty much constant throughout time. So if you go to a planetary surface and you count the number of primary craters on it, you can figure out how old that surface is without even going to it, which is super nice, 'cause it costs a lot of money to send people to planets.

Randall: Yes.

Huffman: But it's also a problem because if people can't distinguish between secondary craters and primary craters, which can be similar sized, if you have a large primary, you have large secondaries, which can be as large as small primaries, then you can severely overestimate the age of that surface.

But secondary craters are really useful, because they tell us some information about what happened during that cratering impact. So, tertiary creators are secondaries of secondaries. So, you have the primary, throw stuff out, make secondaries, which throw stuff out and create tertiaries.

It's really difficult to distinguish between a tertiary and a secondary crater, so that was a lot of my undergraduate thesis, was figuring out how can we make sure, follow these clues that these aren't just very small secondaries.

Randall: And did this come to you because you were a moon gazer? Because you love story? Because you saw that this was a gap in research? What were, how'd you get there?

Huffman: Yeah, so part of it was because of my amazing mentor at the Southwest Research Institute, Kelsi Singer, who I've been working with since, I think, the summer after my sophomore year of undergrad. And she's now a co-advisor on my PhD.

She had this idea that tertiaries might be a thing, and she said, "Hello, undergrad, who I'm paying. You get to sit down and map all of these craters, looking for tertiaries.

Randall: What a gift. What, I mean, that's a huge gift.

Huffman: Yeah, it was great.

Randall: That she had an idea and she said, "I'm gonna trust you to figure this out." And so then…

Huffman: And so, then I mapped, I think, about 6,000 secondary craters.

Randall: How long did this take?

Huffman: Oh, a while.

Randall: Like, until your senior year?

Huffman: Yeah. But I did do it while I was playing D&D, 'cause it's a pretty mindless thing, once you've got it down. So, I was DMing on one screen and mapping craters on the other one.

Randall: You were not.

Huffman: I was, yeah. And none of my players noticed. So that's good.

Randall: And the moon didn't know.

Huffman: No, no, of course not. But yeah, so I found these tertiaries.

Randall: Was this all online? This was COVID?

Huffman: Yes, this was during COVID. The campaign that I DM has been all online.

Randall: Oh, really?

Huffman: Yeah. There's this unnamed primary, which we call Wallace. We're actually working on naming it after Alan Hart, who's a trans man and pioneer who used X-ray screenings in tuberculosis detection.

Randall: Even cooler.

Huffman: Yeah, super awesome. And then the secondary crater, which we call Gromit—originally I was calling them 1P8, 'cause it was 1.8 kilometers in diameter. And then the secondary, I was calling 1P8A. But, you know…

Randall: Very Star Wars-y, but not as colorful as this world.

Huffman: And so, I found these tertiaries, and we think they're tertiaries, not small secondaries, for a couple of reasons. One, the size is right. The largest secondaries tend to be about 5% the size of their primary. And these are about the right size.

Randall: They're about 1.8.

Huffman: Well, 1.8 kilometers in diameter is the size of the primary. The tertiary craters are pretty small. We're talking, like, the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Randall: Wow.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: Wow, and you found that on the moon.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: Also, you just were such a good teacher. I don't feel like I am dissuaded from studying craters even though I got the answer wrong. It's so great. Okay, I'm so happy that you gave me the Volkswagen Beetle. That is an image.

Huffman: Yeah, for sure.

Randall: And you could be doing that while being a dungeon master.

Huffman: Yeah, absolutely.

Randall: Okay, you're a dungeon master.

Huffman: Yes.

Randall: And you are also an extrovert.

Huffman: Yes.

Randall: And this extreme geological and planetary astrophysicist. You are already used to doing the interdisciplinary thing, so you thought, why not just throw my campaign in here?

Huffman: Absolutely.

Randall: And create an entire new world while looking at a rock out from our world. How'd that go for you?

Huffman: Well, one thing that was really useful is I took a few remote-sensing classes in undergrad. And that was really neat, because it taught me how to use a software called RGIS. Super useful. You can use it to map craters.

But also, you can put your world maps for your homebrew D&D campaign in it. And this has been great for me because I have a little sub-routine that I run that tells me if they're trying to go from this town to this town along the roads, how many days it will take at various travel paces.

Randall: You are taking this next level.

Huffman: Yeah, well that's the point as a DM.

One of the appeals of Dungeons and Dragons for Mikayla Huffman is the game's inclusivity.

Randall: That's the point. Okay, how did you become a DM, and talk about women in STEM, women as dungeon masters, a thing, not a thing?

Huffman: Yeah, definitely a thing. There's a lot of great female DMs. And part of that is because D&D is such an inclusive sort of hobby, like, there's a lot of queer people, there's a lot of gender people in D&D, because it's such a great exploratory space.

Randall: I see this with my kid in the skins, and he's always playing in femme skins.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: And D&D kind of started this, right? Because you get to change, your body is a, it's more of a projection of your internal self than the body we might actually wear in the world.

Huffman: Yeah, so I'm gender fluid, so sometimes I feel like a boy. And so, I kind of explored that through D&D. I've only ever played male D&D characters.

Randall: Did you think of yourself as gender fluid when you started exploring through D&D? What kind of came first? Or did they just guide one another?

Huffman: Yeah, so, you know, I've always had inklings that I might be gender fluid, but really being able to explore using he/him pronouns in a safe space with my friends, super useful.

Randall: Has there been work done on this about D&D? And I know that cosplay, there's worlds where we've talked about this in queer studies, but I haven't heard about this in D&D as a path towards remaking identity and rehearsing and playing-

Huffman: Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure if there have been any scientific studies. I was reading an article about how D&D can actually be used to help with social anxiety and depression, which, you know, that, it makes total sense to me, but I'm not sure if there have been any sociological studies about gender identity or sexual identity through D&D.

Randall: Well, I think that's just, it's, what a gift of this form. I remember, it was generally folks who identified as males playing when I was six, and all the others were like, on the side kind of being like, "What are those magical dice? I wanna play with it." But didn't feel like we had the authority to step in.

Huffman: Yeah, so you guys can't see, but I actually have two of my Dungeons and Dragons miniatures here with me that I 3D printed.

Mikayla Huffman holds figures of two of her Dungeons and Dragons characters that she 3D printed.

Randall: This you tiny-3D printed?

Huffman: Yeah, these are two of my characters.

Randall: Okay, this is amazing.

Huffman: So, the one in your left hand is Milky Way. I know, kind of on the nose. His real name's Delmir of Arakel. And this is the guy that I played for my boyfriend's campaign, which we just finished after 1,557 days of real time. I know, it's crazy. I'm still feeling weird about it. We just ended it last week.

Randall: Oh, do you get lonely for those and for the characters?

Huffman: Yeah, but you can always do one-shots, which are self-contained stories with those characters, so we get to revisit them. But Milky is a dragonborn, not like Skyrim. He's like a humanoid dragon character.

The other guy is Max, which is actually my masculine name… And Max is a tiefling, which is like, sort of a devil person conquest paladin. And tiefling are really interesting in D&D, because they've kind of been discriminated against in the canon.

And so, gender minorities, racial minorities, sexuality minorities, they can all kind of project that sort of conflict onto tieflings in the game.

Randall: So, a tiefling is kind of like a representative body. A representative outcast.

Huffman: Yeah, every queer person that I know loves playing tieflings.

Randall: Okay, when we think about how we move forward, it's all chance in these (Dungeons and Dragons) worlds, but in your world, in science, it's nothing is left to chance.

Huffman: Well, you'd be surprised. Statistics are a huge part of my research. So in D&D, you basically roll the dice, and then you add some modifiers, depending on your character. And then the DM sets what's called a DC. And if you're above that DC then you succeed. If you're below that DC then you fail at what you're trying to do.

In science, failure is a huge part of it. In science, your first hypothesis is never, ever, ever going to be right. And I talk about this a lot with undergrads. Because we're not taught that, you know? We're taught that you need to succeed on the first try, which is impossible.

Randall: Yeah. So, failure is a goal, 'cause it teaches you something.

Huffman: Exactly, and so, you know, when I give this talk to undergrads, I say, "Here's my resume, very impressive," and then they're like, "Oh my God, she's so impressive." And then later on, I put up my resume, and then in the next column, my failure resume. So, I say, yes, I got this, but I had to apply to 30 internships and get ghosted from 29 of them.

Randall: Oh, I love this.

Huffman: You know what I mean?

Randall: Yeah. And do you weave it with D&D when you're talking to folks? Is this something that's been ANDed for you for a while?

Huffman: Yeah, so I do talk about D&D a lot with respect to science as well, 'cause, you know, I oftentimes, for my world maps, will just steal the maps of other planets and then add some water to them. And I'm like yeah, this is my homebrew world. It's definitely not Mars, but you've gotta just add water.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

Listen to The Ampersand

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman joins ‘The Ampersand’ podcast for a discussion about identity and discovery.

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, Fort Lewis College support Native American astrophysics students

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 02:01:59 +0000

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, Fort Lewis College support Native American astrophysics students Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/13/2023 - 20:01

Doug McPherson

Julie Comerford, associate professor of astrophysics, initiated the NSF-funded research program opening pathways to students often underrepresented in physical sciences

A new program at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder is helping Native American undergraduate students delve into astrophysics and more fully participate in scientific research that frequently happens on Indigenous lands.

The National Science Foundation-supported program is a partnership between ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and Fort Lewis College in Durango, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ. Julie Comerford, associate professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, who is leading the program, notes that Fort Lewis College does not have an astrophysics program, so students interested in the field lack opportunities.

“The intent is to open pathways to astrophysics for Native American students,” Comerford says.

Julie Comerford, associate professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, initiated a summer research partnership between ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and Fort Lewis College to open pathways to astrophysics for Native American undergraduate students.

The American Institute of Physics reports that for every 1,000 Native American students who earn a bachelor’s degree, only four do so in physics or geosciences.

“In individual terms, an average of two Native American students earn a bachelor’s degree in astronomy each year, and fewer than one earns a Ph.D. in astronomy each year,” Comerford says. “These low numbers are especially stark for a field that builds many of its ground-based telescopes on land that’s sacred to Indigenous peoples. So even though our program is small–only three students per year–the potential impact could be massive in terms of opening pathways to astrophysics.”

Individualized research

Each student in the program is participating in a different research project with their advisor, who are ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder or National Solar Observatory faculty members. The students’ projects include analyzing images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii and using image data from Mars rovers and orbiters to study high-altitude noctilucent clouds—research inspired by the student’s experience during childhood of seeing a sunlit cloud in the sky at night. Program participants also are exploring qualities of planets beyond our solar system.

In addition, the students are taking part in professional development workshops hosted by the Boulder Solar Alliance Research Experience for Undergraduates, part of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The workshops include how to give a brief description of their research projects, how to write scientific abstracts, how to make a research poster and how to apply to graduate school. The students also get mentoring from ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder graduate students.

Astrophysics program interns and mentors—including (left to right around the table) intern Yoshi Levey, mentor and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ graduate student Charles (Charlie) Marrder, mentor and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ graduate student Anna Zuckerman and mentor and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ graduate student Marcel Corchado-Albelo—attend a professional development workshop at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics/National Solar Observatory in Boulder.

The idea for the program came to Comerford when she saw an NSF solicitation for its Partnerships in Astronomy & Astrophysics Research and Education (PAARE) program, which works to improve astronomy and astrophysics research and education.

“I thought it sounded really interesting and worthwhile,” Comerford says.

Statewide partnership

As Comerford was thinking about what institution to partner with, her department chair, Nils Halverson, mentioned the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder-Fort Lewis partnership the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ@FLC Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship Program, started by former Associate Dean for Research Theresa D. Hernández and James White, former acting dean for the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder College of Arts and Sciences.

“I reached out to Theresa to learn more and came out of that conversation thinking that Fort Lewis College would be an amazing partner.” Comerford says. “I owe a lot to Nils and Theresa for encouraging me and helping me get my PAARE proposal off the ground. I wrote the proposal in January 2022, so it's been 18 months to get from the proposal to this first cohort of students.”

Hernandez says Comerford's partnership with Fort Lewis College creates an amazing opportunity to engage undergraduates in astrophysics and to increase the recruitment, retention and successes of groups often underrepresented in that field.

“This program also rounds out ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s and Fort Lewis College’s Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship Program,” Hernandez says. “Together, these create a strong foundation for regular interaction between both campuses and for students through their undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral studies. We’re thrilled that the first group of students have started, and by Dr. Comerford’s strong commitment to this important work in her field.”

In summer 2025, alumni from the astrophysics program will gather at Chimney Rock National Monument in southwest ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ for the lunar standstill, during which the full moon rises between two rock formations as viewed from an ancestral Puebloan ceremonial site.

Andy Cowell, faculty director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS) at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, says CNAIS is excited to support Comerford’s project. “We’ve been working recently to expand our cooperative work with natural sciences departments. We want to help promote not just Native and Indigenous Studies as an academic discipline, but also Native communities in all academic areas across the campus, and this project is a good example of how that can be done.”

Comerford says she has funds to run the program for three summers. After the third summer, she plans to gather all program alumni at Chimney Rock National Monument in southwest ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ for the 2025 lunar standstill, during which the full moon rises between two rock formations as viewed from an ancestral Puebloan ceremonial site.

“I want to use these first three years to establish the program, and then grow it into a longstanding, established program with institutional support from ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder,” Comerford says, adding that she thinks of the NSF funding as a seed grant. “The goal is for this to become an embedded program that continues decades from now.”

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Julie Comerford, associate professor of astrophysics, initiated the NSF-funded research program opening pathways to students often underrepresented in physical sciences.

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