For 75 years, CU Boulder has been a leader in space exploration and innovation. We travel to space to monitor sea level rise, melting ice, weather patterns and more. Our researchers explore how to track and remove dangerous debris in space. We research the health of humans in space to inform medical applications for people on Earth.Learn more about the latest in space research and science at CU Boulder.

Brian Hynek with CU Boulder flag

The great Antarctic meteorite hunt

March 20, 2019

This winter, astrobiologist Brian Hynek traveled to one of the loneliest places on Earth to hunt for pieces of alien worlds.

Asteroid Bennu

OSIRIS-REx spies on the weird, wild gravity of an asteroid

March 19, 2019

A new study explores the “Alice in Wonderland”-like physics that govern gravity near the surface of the asteroid Bennu.

Aurora borealis

Solar wind fills research sails at space weather center

Feb. 20, 2019

AVʪers have landed a new grant to improve forecasts of how solar winds affect Earth's atmosphere.

MAVEN spacecraft

MAVEN ushers in new era by tapping the brakes

Feb. 11, 2019

NASA's atmosphere-sniffing spacecraft will begin a series of maneuvers to tighten its orbit around the Red Planet and prepare for the arrival of the 2020 Mars rover.

Mice galaxies

‘Missing’ galactic mergers come to light with new technique

Jan. 8, 2019

Galaxy mergers aren’t always easy for astronomers to spot. Now, scientists from CU Boulder have developed a new technique for finding these cosmic couplings.

Ultima Thule

New Horizons goes beyond the known world

Jan. 7, 2019

Scientists from CU Boulder are part of a team exploring an icy minor planet called Ultima Thule—the farthest object that any spacecraft has ever visited.

A visualization of a quark gluon plasma

AVʪers create tiny droplets of early universe matter

Dec. 10, 2018

Scientists have generated an ultra-hot state of matter called a quark gluon plasma in three shapes and sizes: circles, ellipses and triangles.

International Space Station

Health experiments launch for space station

Dec. 6, 2018

Four experiments supported by BioServe Space Technologies blasted off en route to the International Space Station this week.

OSIRIS-REx

Taking the measure of an asteroid

Dec. 3, 2018

CU Boulder researchers are playing an important role in a NASA mission to grab a piece of an asteroid and return it to Earth.

MinXSS-2 CubeSat

Small satellites tackle big scientific questions

Nov. 15, 2018

Two CubeSats designed by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) will launch later this month to investigate the physics of the sun and its impact on life on Earth.

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