space sciences

UCLA astronomer Bradley Hansen on how a giant exomoon hundreds of times the size of Earth might help astronomers find planets where life may thrive.

If skies are clear, viewers will be able to see the moon — approximately 240,000 miles from Earth — and its many craters in great detail.

“We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole,” said UCLA professor Andrea Ghez.

Does the physicist’s theory tell the full story? A detailed analysis of a star’s orbit near supermassive black hole gives a look into how gravity behaves.

The research addresses a longstanding question: Why does the moon have so much less ice than Mercury, despite their similar surface conditions?

The UCLA-developed sensors work at room temperature, unlike current technology that needs extreme cold.

High pressure deep inside the young Earth may have driven vast stores of carbon into the planet’s core while also setting the stage for diamonds to form.

Magnetic pump built by Bruin Space launches on Blue Origin reusable rocket.

UCLA astronomer Mark Morris and an international team of collaborators found that the two plumes extend over 500 light-years.

Vladimir Vassiliev, professor of physics and astronomy, has served as principal investigator on project that could help address questions in very-high-energy astrophysics.

At the heart of the dispute is the Hubble constant, a number that relates distances to the redshifts of galaxies — the amount that light is stretched as it travels to Earth.

The free event will include moon dust, meteorites and lunar experts. The viewing is part of International Observe the Moon Night, an annual worldwide celebration that encourages appreciation of the moon.

With the successful launch of their ELFIN satellites, UCLA students’ work studying space weather is just beginning.

For the past five years, more than 250 UCLA undergraduates have designed and built a small satellite that will launch into orbit to study space weather.

A team of scientists that includes two UCLA College researchers published a study in Nature Communications that sheds light on the phenomenon.

Their answers point to breakthroughs that are improving daily lives, preserving the health of the planet and revealing the mysteries of the universe.

“It was a rare case in astronomy where two competing models ... offered precisely opposite predictions,” said UCLA professor Steven Furlanetto.

Marco Velli is the observatory scientist on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which will venture into the sun’s outer atmosphere to advance understanding of space weather.

The international team has found the first evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos — ghostly subatomic particles that can travel unhindered for billions of light-years to Earth.

Scientists have long been interested in Europa because evidence suggests that a vast ocean lies beneath its icy outer shell.

The research, which enabled viewing of an enormous blue star nicknamed Icarus, increases understanding of the fundamental composition of the universe, said UCLA’s Tommaso Treu, co-author of the study.

UCLA has acquired a rare lunar meteorite that was blasted off the moon by the impact of a large meteoroid, and landed in North Africa.

“I’ve been studying young stars near Earth for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this one,” said UCLA astronomer Benjamin Zuckerman.

Scientists using a state-of-the-art UCLA instrument have witnessed a planetary-scale “tug-of-war” of life, deep Earth and the upper atmosphere that is expressed in atmospheric nitrogen.

Astronaut and alumna Anna Lee Fisher will receive UCLA’s first Science and Education Pioneer award at Young Hall at 2 p.m.