New and exciting activities in the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
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Recent News from MacCenter Fellows
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| MCSS Newsletter - Summer 2024
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Highlights from the past year have been compiled into a summer 2024 newsletter.
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The Discovery of Native Sulfur on Mars
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Scientists were astonished when NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recently ran over a rock and cracked it open, revealing the unexpected sight of yellow sulfur crystals inside it.
The rover has been exploring a region of Mars abundant in sulfates, a type of salt that contains sulfur and forms when water evaporates. While previous detections have been primarily sulfur-based minerals, this particular rock consisted of pure elemental sulfur. The connection between elemental sulfur and other sulfur-based minerals in the area remains unclear.
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The discovery was made possible by the efforts of several people, including three from EEPS. Senior Research Scientist Scott VanBommel, Staff Scientist Abigail Knight, and postdoctoral research associate John Christian, who are affiliated with MCSS, are members of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) teams. Their analyses and models of APXS spectra obtained from these rocks confirmed that the observed results are consistent with native sulfur, marking the first such discovery on Mars.
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From Apollo to Artemis: Unlocking the Moon's Secrets
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Kenzie Mounir, a rising senior, is pursuing a major in planetary science and minoring in biology. She has consistently engaged in research opportunities over the course of her academic journey. She was recently awarded an MCSS undergraduate summer research fellowship to conduct research under the guidance of Brad Jolliff, the Scott Rudolph Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and Director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.
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Their collaborative study focuses on the detailed analysis of Apollo 17 lunar core samples using the electron microprobe housed in Rudolph Hall in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. This sophisticated instrument enables detailed imaging and compositional analysis of the samples, providing valuable insight into their makeup and composition.
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WRANGL3R:
Rover-Mounted Drill Sensor for Water Resource Survey on the Moon
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As we venture deeper into space, the importance of power and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) grows. Generating products with local materials becomes crucial, reducing the dependency on supplies from Earth.
Washington University in St. Louis, in collaboration with Impossible Sensing, has received funding from LuSTR for their project known as WRANGL3R (Water Regolith ANalysis for Grounded Lunar 3D Reconnaissance).
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This project, led by Alian Wang, Research Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, and the WashU Planetary Spectroscopy team and partnered with Impossible Sensing since 2021, has been aimed at developing a miniaturized sensor using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technology. The sensor will be integrated into a drill bit on a planetary rover to quantify the three-dimensional distribution of water ice in lunar regolith at the Moon's polar region in order to support the resource survey in the next step of lunar exploration.
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Gokus has won a Fermi grant
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Andrea Gokus, McDonnell Center Postdoctoral Fellow, and Rebecca Phillipson, a postdoc from Villanova, have been awarded a $79,000 NASA grant as part of the 'Fermi Guest Investigator Program. Their research project involves analyzing data from the Fermi satellite, specifically the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard. The LAT has been continuously monitoring the entire sky for over 15 years at gamma-ray energies. The researchers are particularly interested in studying blazars, which are active galaxies that harbor a jet pointed towards us.
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NASA Exploration Science Forum
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The NASA Exploration Science Forum was held at WashU last week. Jeff Gillis-Davis was the chair of the local organizing committee. MCSS sponsored travel awards for 16 students attending the meeting. Robin Canup presented a public lecture on The Origin of the Moon at Graham Chapel
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MacCenter Fellows in the News
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Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center
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St. Louis Astronomical Society July Meeting
Bradley Tsalyuk, Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, California Science Center
Friday, August 16
7:30pm, McDonnell 162
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| McDonnell Center Contacts |
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Compiled and edited by Alison Verbeck. Please send any contributions to alison@wustl.edu.
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© 2024 All rights reserved
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