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.

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. 

In a new book, Green, Fair, and Prosperous: Paths to a Sustainable Iowa, Charles Connerly, director of the UI School of Planning and Public Affairs, provides a thoroughly researched history lesson on how Iowa got where it is and suggests decisions to make going forward.

Scott Baalrud, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, offers insights into plans submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy to develop fusion energy, a virtually limitless, carbon-free energy source that has been elusive to create.

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.

The Voyager spacecraft continue to make discoveries even as they travel through interstellar space. In a new study, University of Iowa physicists report on the Voyagers’ detection of cosmic ray electrons associated with eruptions from the sun—more than 14 billion miles away.

In a successful switch during the coronavirus pandemic, the University of Iowa’s Growing Words Project altered its approach to studying how children learn words, testing children’s abilities online and recruiting more elementary-age participants in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

Canadian Iowa student Marissa Mueller has become the UI’s 22nd Rhodes Scholar.

Communicating the value of a graduate students’ research is more important than ever. The Graduate College’s Three Minute Thesis competition helps them share their work more broadly with people who aren’t experts in the field.