Friday, September 25, 2026

New and exciting activities in the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences

MCSS Fellows in the News

Billions of Years Ago, Venus May Have Had a Moon —
Which the Planet Promptly Gobbled Up, Study Suggests
Paul Byrne | Smithsonian Magazine

Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Cappiello, C. V., Dev, P. S. B., & Patwardhan, A. V. (2026b). New supernova constraints on vector-mediated neutrinophilic dark sector. Physics Letters B, 881, 140923. 

Blanco-Pillado, J. J., Ferrer, F., et al. (2026). Cuspidal singularities in collapsing domain walls. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2026(09), 073. 

Kawasaki, N., Amari, S., et al. (2026). The parent bodies of Ryugu and Ivuna formed before those of other carbonaceous chondrites. Science, 393(6816), 1117–1121. 

Ramazanova, E., Catalano, J. G., et al. (2026). Rate and Stoichiometry of Ytterbium Release during Ligand-Promoted Goethite Dissolution. Environmental Science & Technology. 

Sae-Lim, J., Konecky, B. L., Hutchings, J. A., et al. (2026). Temperature variability in the Peruvian Andes during the past ∼2700 years based on glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers. Organic Geochemistry, 221, 105297. 

Observe the Harvest Moon

Mid-Autumn Festival
Snacks Provided!
Saturday, September 26
8:00-10:00pm, Crow Observatory

Waving in the Dark

Physics Colloquium
Mustafa Amin
Rice University
Wednesday, September 30
3:00pm, Compton 340

A Sharper View of the GeV Sky: High-Resolution Gamma-Ray Astronomy with a Balloon-Borne Nuclear Emulsion Telescope

Astrophysics & Space Sciences Seminar
Hiroki Rokujo
Nagoya University, Japan
Thursday, October 1
9:00am, Compton 241

The compositional diversity of rocky exoplanets: Consequences for evolution, tectonics, and habitability 

EEPS Colloquium
Brad Foley
Penn State University
Thursday, October 1
11:30am, Rudolph 301

Nonlinear Quantum Matter for AI Imaging and Computing Conference 

Bringing together researchers at the intersection of quantum materials, nonlinear optics, AI, computational imaging, sensing, and emerging computing hardware
Fri., October 2 - Sat., October 3
Umrath Lounge

The Galactic Annihilation Line Explorer (GALE) Balloon-borne Mission to Study 511-keV Annihilation Emission Morphology in the Inner Galaxy

Astrophysics & Space Sciences Seminar
Makoto Sasaki
Goddard Space Flight Center
Friday, October  2
9:00am, Compton 241

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Interim Director: William McKinnon
Associate Director: Michael Nowak
Assistants to the Director: Vickie Gee and Beth Sparks
Communications Specialist: Alison Verbeck

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