News
School Staff Member in the Great American Thinkoff
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Angela Stehr was one of four finalists to answer the question “Is it Better to Win or Play by the Rules?” in the Great American Thinkoff, held annually in New York Mills, MN. Stehr is a Program Specialist for the Minnesota Institute of Astrophysics and is a self-described “Thinkoff Groupie.”
Local team selected by Air Force for space launch
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A team from the University of Minnesota Small Satellite Laboratory was selected in a competition to be one of three teams to have their small instrument, a cubesat, launched into space.
MIfA Undergraduate Student accepted into NASA L'Space Academy
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MIfA Undergraduate Student Izzi Perron was accepted into the highly competitive mentoring program which is designed to develop the future workforce talents in space missions and technologies.
Measurements of the Muon Magnetic Moment strengthen a previously reported tension with theoretical predictions
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School of Physics and Astronomy Professor Priscilla Cushman's article was published in the Physics magazine.
The Red Hypergiant VY CMa --- Betelgeuse on Steroids
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Professor Emerita Roberta Humphreys of the School of Physics and Astronomy led a study with the Hubble Space Telescope to explain the origin of numerous high mass-loss ejections from a very massive star.
NASA’s Webb Telescope Will Show Us More Stars at Higher Resolution
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School of Physics and Astronomy Professor and MIfA director Evan Skillman is playing a role in NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope's Early Release Program.
‘Underappreciated’ Stars Lay a Claim to Our Cosmic Ancestry
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“The catastrophic ends of some stars are the origins of many life-sustaining elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and the iron in our blood,” said University of Minnesota researcher Chick Woodward.
Sun-bombing Spacecraft Uncovers Secrets of the Solar Wind
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NASA's sun-skimming Parker Solar Probe uncovers secrets of the solar wind. Congrats to the UMN MIfA FIELDS team: Keith Goetz, Cindy Cattell, John Wygant, Paul Kellog, Steve Monson, Jason Hinze, Josh Lynch.
The Award Rejection that Shook Astronomy
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Professor Roberta Humphreys reflects on Margaret Burbidge's 1971 decision to decline the Annie Jump Cannon Award, an act that forced the astronomy community to reconsider the prize and examine discrimination against women in the field.
What Stars Will Hatch From The Tarantula Nebula? NASA’s Flying Observatory Seeks to Find Out
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Researchers from the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, led by graduate student Michael Gordon, flew on NASA's flying telescope, SOFIA, to identify and characterize the brightness, ages and dust content of three young star-forming regions within our galactic satellite, the Large Magellanic Cloud.