Friday, August 22, 2025

The MCSS Messenger

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

Recent News from McDonnell Center Fellows

MCSS Annual Newsletter - Summer 2025

Highlights from the past year have been compiled into a summer 2025 newsletter.

Konecky wins 2025 NSF CAREER Award

MCSS fellow Bronwen Konecky, associate professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, has won an NSF CAREER Award for her project titled "Mechanisms of Holocene Rainfall Change in the Northern Tropical Americas." Konecky runs the Climate and Paleoclimate Laboratory in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. The lab investigates climate, water, and ecosystem variations in the Earth’s tropical regions, from the past ~150,000 years to the 21st century.

Discovery Awaits

An artist’s illustration shows a key part of the process that created this new black hole, as the two neutron stars spin around each other while merging. The purple material depicts debris from the merger. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

See the PowerPoint

The Chandra X-ray Center shared a collection of highlights from the Cycle 27 GO program in a PowerPoint presentation. Tekeba Olbemo, an MCSS graduate student who collaborates with Manel Errando, had his work on "Chandra Grating Observations of the Next Outburst of the Naked-Eye Recurrent Nova T Corona Borealis" highlighted in this presentation. The research focuses on the anticipated eruption of T Corona Borealis, a binary star system, predicted to occur in 2026.

CALET & TIGER Anniversaries

CALET at the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center prior to launch. Brian Rauch is in the front row, 2nd from the left.

CALET (Calorimetric Electron Telescope) recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of its launch to the International Space Station (ISS). It is still operating and is slated to continue through the end of the ISS, currently 2030. Brian Rauch is the WashU Institution PI.

TIGER (Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month. Its first flight in 1995 was followed by three successful flights (1997, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004). It was succeeded by SuperTIGER which had two successful flights (2012-2013 and 2019-2020). The latest instrument, TIGERISS, is scheduled to launch to the ISS in 2027. Brian Rauch has been involved in the TIGER missions from the beginning and is the PI for the TIGERISS program.

TIGER during balloon inflation (Credit: Brian Rauch)

The original TIGER team: Kim Slavis, Dana Braun, Garry Simburger, David Lawrence, Marty Olevitch, Eric Christian, Brian Rauch, Stephanie Sposato, and Joe Klarmann with TIGER at Lynn Lake, Manitoba.

TIGER on the launch vehicle (Credit: Brian Rauch)

Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Adriani, O., Binns, W. R., Israel, M.H., Krawczynski, H.S., Rauch, B.F., Zober, W. V., et al. (2025a). Precision spectral measurements of chromium and titanium from 10 to 250 GeV/n and sub-iron to iron ratio with the Calorimetric Electron Telescope on the International Space Station. Physical Review Letters, 135 (2), 021002.

Dev, P. B., et al. (2025). New laboratory constraints on neutrinophilic mediators. Physics Letters B, 868, 139765.

Kroft, M. A., Daylan, T., et al. (2025). A Pair of Dynamically Interacting Sub-Neptunes around TOI-6054. The Astronomical Journal, 170(3), 150.

Wysession, M. E. (2025). The Executive Order “Restoring Gold Standard Science” is Dangerous for America. AGU Advances, 6(4), e2025AV002011.

Anderson, D., Michaelides, R., et al. (2024). Tundra fires and surface subsidence increase spectral diversity on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska. Environmental Research Ecology.

Gavrilenko, M., Krawczynski, M., et al. (2025). The magmatic H₂O pathway of ascending arc magmas recorded by Ca-in-olivine hygrometry: advantages, complications, and perspectives. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 180(9).

Houghton, J., Fike, D., et al. (2025). Selectivity of Tris complexation for Ni(II), Co(II), and Fe(II) and its effect on carbonate precipitation under alkaline conditions. Applied Geochemistry, 191, 106512.

Zeng, J., Errando, M., et al. (2025). Antihelium-3 sensitivity for the GRAMS experiment . Astroparticle Physics., 173, 103152.

Upcoming Events

Mountain beneath a starry sky reflected in water

How do Explosive Eruptions Through Water Change Climate and Why Does It Matter?

EEPS Colloquium
Mark Jellinek
University of British Columbia
Thursday, August 28
11:30am, Rudolph 301

View Event

Open House

EEPS Open House
Thursday, August 28
2:00pm, Rudolph 301

View Event

Aspects of Cosmological Gravitational Waves at Pulsar Timing Arrays

Theory Seminar
Fabrizio Rompineve
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona & IFAE
Thursday, August 28
3:00pm, Compton 241

View Event

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McDonnell Center Contacts

Interim Director: William McKinnon
Associate Director: Michael Nowak
Assistant to the Director: Vickie Gee
Communications Specialist: Alison Verbeck

Compiled and edited by Alison Verbeck. Please send any contributions to alison@wustl.edu.

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