Science & Technology

Develop an open-source nuclear detection system. That was the charge from the U.S. Department of Defense to members of its new internship program, the X-Force Fellowship. Washington University in St. Louis sophomore Andrew Bass had been selected to serve in the pilot cohort and arrived at Cape Canaveral in Florida convinced he would fail. 

William B. McKinnon, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, led one of three new studies that together provide a far more complete picture of the composition and origin of Arrokoth. The new research published in Science points to the resolution of a longstanding scientific controversy about how such primitive planetary building blocks called planetesimals were formed.

Presolar grains — tiny bits of solid interstellar material formed before the sun was born — are sometimes found in primitive meteorites. But a noble gas analysis from physicists in Arts & Sciences reveals evidence of presolar grains in part of a meteorite where they are not expected to be found.

A balloon-borne scientific instrument designed to study the origin of cosmic rays is taking its second turn high above the continent of Antarctica three and a half weeks after its launch.

A team of Washington University in St. Louis scientists at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, successfully launched its SuperTIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) instrument, which is used to study the origin of cosmic rays. 

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis will develop and deploy a new telescope designed to measure the linear polarization of X-rays arriving from distant neutron stars, black holes and other exotic celestial objects. The instrument will be flown on a minimum of two scientific balloon launches as early as summer 2021. The NASA-funded effort builds on promising results from a previous balloon-borne mission known as X-Calibur and is dubbed XL-Calibur.

RIP Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. But the geosciences data they collected will live on at Washington University, under the care of a team of archivists in Arts & Sciences. The data includes details about both rovers’ every move as well as many images that helped this space mission capture the public’s imagination.

Under a five-year, $7 million cooperative agreement led by Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, research associate professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, researchers will investigate fundamental questions at the intersection of space science and human space exploration.

Nobel laureate Kip Thorne will visit Washington University to deliver a public talk on Thursday, Nov. 7. Thorne’s work in theoretical physics examines gravitational waves, the Big Bang and what these phenomena tell us about the dynamics of the universe.

The team that worked on the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity received the Distinguished Science Award from the Huntsville, Ala., chapter of the National Space Club. The award recognizes outstanding contributions in research and discovery that expand knowledge and understanding of space. Raymond Arvidson, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences, is the mission’s deputy principal investigator.