Associate Professor Jasper Halekas recently received a grant award to investigate the environment in Reiner Gamma, a strongly magnetized region of the surface of the Moon.   NASA, via the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), awarded Halekas $160,433 for the investigation, “Lunar Vertex: Exploring the Intersection of Geoscience and Space Plasma Physics.”  Halekas is the deputy principal investigator for the investigation.  

The MAGnetometers for Innovation and Capability (MAGIC) Technology Demonstration on the TRACERS SMEX satellite mission passed its confirmation review at NASA on March 8.  Dr. Nicola Fox, Heliophysics Division Director, approved MAGIC to formally proceed into the implementation phase, which means the MAGIC team can start flight build.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted President Barbara Wilson on March 9 with a tour of Van Allen Hall to highlight all the fantastic work being done by faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students.

CBS 2/Iowa's News Now: University of Iowa scientists are back home after a weeks-long trip to Alaska to study the aurora borealis.

The LAMP mission, short for Loss through Auroral Microburst Pulsations, launched on Saturday, Mar. 5, 2022, on a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket. 

Chris Piker, senior database administrator, has been selected as a recipient of the 2022 College of LIberal Arts and Sciences  Mary Louise Kelley Staff Excellence Award. This award recognizes staff members in CLAS who have performed exceptional service to their department or the College.

Professor Craig Kletzing was one of three distinguished University of Iowa faculty members who gave presentations at the 39th Presidential Lecture on Feb. 27.

Professor Yasar Onel and Professor Jane Nachtman have been awarded $14,553 from Fermi Research Alliance for a project entitled “Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE FD-2) CRP engineering support at FNAL and BNL Sites.”

Holed up in a cabin in the small northern Alaskan village of Venetie — which, according to the 2020 census, had a population of just 125 — University of Iowa doctoral candidate Riley Troyer is on a NASA-funded mission to sky gaze. His duties, actually, are much more specific and scientific, as he’s among a trio of University of Iowa investigators who over the weekend flew to Alaska on a three-week mission to better understand a rarely viewed type of aurora — also known as Northern Lights — that flashes or “pulsates.”

In this radio interview from KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska. University of Iowa PhD candidate Riley Troyer discussed the LAMP rocket mission which will probe pulsating aurora.