University of Michigan Space Institute – Page 4 – University of Michigan Space Institute

U-M Astronomy Will Lead Its First Satellite Mission With NASA Grant

Posted on February 13, 2025 (March 19, 2025) by U-M Space Institute

The first space mission led by the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy is scheduled to launch in 2029 with the support of a NASA grant worth $10 million. The mission is called STARI—STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry—and will showcase the viability of a new technique for studying exoplanets, or planets outside of our solar system.

Witnessing the Birth of Planets

Posted on February 12, 2025 (March 13, 2025) by U-M Space Institute

University of Michigan researchers contributed to an international collaboration that’s providing an unparalleled view into how planets are born using the JWST—the most powerful space telescope ever launched. In particular, the team studied PDS 70, a young star with two growing planets in its orbit. Located 370 lightyears away, this system gives scientists a rare chance to see how planets form and evolve during their earliest stages of development.

Leinweber Lab Becomes Design Hub for Moon Garden Equipment

Posted on February 5, 2025 (March 13, 2025) by U-M Space Institute

If you walk by the new Leinweber Innovation Lab inside the Climate & Space Research Building on a Wednesday evening, you might notice the BLiSS student team hard at work in each of the lab’s studios. There, members of their subteams are working in parallel to design tools that could help solve challenges in NASA’s future Artemis missions to the moon. The lab’s four open studio spaces were the perfect fit for the BLiSS student team to help future moon missions.

A Vision for Safer Space Exploration with the CLEAR Center

Posted on January 30, 2025 (February 26, 2025) by U-M Space Institute

The CLEAR Center, a Space Weather Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan, works to improve forecasting of solar energetic particles that emerge from a solar eruption, with speeds nearly reaching the speed of light, which follow the spiral shape of the solar wind’s magnetic fields into interplanetary space.

Getting the Most Out of Cosmic Maps

Posted on January 20, 2025 (February 26, 2025) by U-M Space Institute

Research led by the University of Michigan could help put cosmology on the inside track to reaching the full potential of telescopes and other instruments studying some of the universe’s largest looming questions. The project showcased how a new computational method gleans more information than its predecessors from maps showing how galaxies are clustered and threaded throughout the universe. Scientists are currently using tools like DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, to generate these maps and dig deeper into the nature of dark energy, dark matter and other cosmic mysteries.