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Solar flares could damage satellites, trigger radio blackouts and even threaten the health of astronauts by penetrating spacecraft shielding. That's why scientists are on a quest to better understand space weather, and a soon-to-launch instrument package will help.

A team of astronomers, including one from ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ, used the super-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to find the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving only the smaller galaxy's nearly-naked supermassive black hole to emerge and speed away at more than 2,000 miles per second. 

A NASA mission to Mars led by ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ has shown that water escaping from the planet's atmosphere is driven in large part by how close it is to the sun.

New global images of Mars from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission being led by ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ show the ultraviolet glow from the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail, revealing dynamic, previously invisible behavior.

Today, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, which is being led by the ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ, completed one Mars year of science observations. One Mars year is just under two Earth years.

If you gaze at the night sky from Earth in just the right place, you will see the International Space Station (ISS), a bright speck of light hurtling through space at 5 miles per second as it orbits 220 miles above the planet. And if you were an astronaut floating around inside the station, you would see high-tech hardware and experiments designed and built at ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ.

A NASA mission involving ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 5:05 p.m. MDT Thursday night and is on its way to explore an asteroid, setting the stage for a better understanding of the evolution of our solar system.  

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, set for launch Sept. 8 and which involves ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ researchers, is designed to snag a sample from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid for study. The spacecraft will fly more than 1 billion miles in two years before reporting for duty at the asteroid known as Bennu.

Capitalizing on its reputation as a top public university in space research, ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ has launched a brand new Space Minor program for all undergraduate students. Students are invited to learn more at an event 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, at the Fiske Planetarium. The event will feature astronaut Jim Voss - and pizza and drinks.

Three of the four honorees being inducted into the inaugural Colorado Space Heroes Hall of Fame are CU alumni. The recognition is bestowed upon leaders who've "contributed most significantly to the evolution, success and development of Colorado’s space economy as one of the most important in the nation and world."