A NASA-sponsored team at the University of Iowa is restoring and advancing the nation’s capability to make high-fidelity magnetic field measurements needed to investigate space weather that can impact our communication and power grids on Earth and our assets in space. The UI team, led by Dr. David Miles, has developed a new fluxgate magnetometer core to be used in the Space Weather Iowa Magnetometer (SWIM).

The cover story and feature article in the September 2025 issue of Physics Today is by John Sunderland, Director of the University of Iowa PET Imaging Center, who has a secondary appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The article "Medical imaging with antimatter" discusses how positron emission tomography’s ability to image the body’s biochemistry, not just its anatomy, makes it a powerful tool for detecting diseases.

University of Iowa Associate Professor Ken Gayley talked with Fox LiveNOW's Austin Westfall to discuss the largest piece of Mars on Earth, fetching more than $5 million at auction.

Assistant Professor David Nataf has recently received several research grants that could improve our understanding of planets outside the solar system.

University of Iowa graduate research assistant Jacob Payne — with guidance from UI Physics and Astronomy Associate Professor Casey DeRoo — applied for and landed a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology award to develop a new X-ray telescope.

A study from University of Iowa researchers reveals that the aurora borealis — the northern lights — appear brighter when electromagnetic waves in space interact with particles inside the aurora. Connor Feltman, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa, examined data from two rockets that were launched into the aurora from Andøya, Norway, in 2022, an Iowa-led experiment known as the ACES-II mission.

Dr. Bill Kurth from the University of Iowa was a part of a team of researchers who discovered the plasma wave, unlike anything ever recorded.