Juno and Jupiter

NASA extends Juno mission

The U.S. space agency NASA announced this week it will extend the Juno mission to Jupiter and its moons through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. Along for the ride has been a radio- and plasma-wave instrument designed and built at Iowa.

HaloSat re-enters Earth's atmosphere after successful mission

A small, new-generation satellite designed and built at the University of Iowa has re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, after a successful mission to search for matter believed to be missing since the birth of the universe. The mini satellite, called HaloSat, was designed and built by a team led by Philip Kaaret, professor and chair in Department of Physics and Astronomy. HaloSat was the first astrophysics-focused and competitively selected CubeSat mission funded by NASA’s Astrophysics Division. 

The Voyagers Found a Small Surprise in Interstellar Space

A team of scientists has detected sudden bursts of cosmic rays around the Voyagers. The bursts, they report, are caused by shock waves emanating from solar eruptions that spew particles out at a million miles an hour. The shock waves take more than a year to reach the Voyagers, but when they do, they excite cosmic-ray electrons nearby. Scientists have observed similar phenomena closer to home, around Earth and our planetary neighbors, but never in interstellar space.

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