As a sizable asteroid makes a close pass by Earth, a team of UArizona students is ready to observe the action to practice and test procedures that could be useful in mitigating an impending asteroid impact in the future.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers observed detailed features, including roiling clouds of dust, in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf planet 40 light-years away.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is cruising back to Earth with the sample it collected from asteroid Bennu's rocky surface in 2020. When the sample capsule parachutes down into the Utah desert on Sept. 24, the UArizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission will become the first U.S. mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth.

Mapping a large coastal glacier in Alaska revealed that its bulk sits below sea level and is undercut by channels, making it vulnerable to accelerated melting in an already deteriorating coastal habitat.

CatSat is a small satellite carrying a new communications concept – an inflatable antenna – into space. Led by UArizona students and supported by engineers from local aerospace companies, the project offers students a rare chance to get hands-on experience with spaceflight technology.

Future space missions likely will send robots to scout out underground habitats for astronauts. UArizona engineers have developed a system that would allow autonomous vehicles to explore caves, lava tubes and even oceans on other worlds.

With NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, researchers are observing star formation in nearby galaxies with unprecedented resolution at infrared wavelengths.

University of Arizona space sciences activities generate more than $560 million every year for the local economy, according to an economic impact report delivered by Rounds Consulting Group.

NASA awarded nearly $3 million to the University of Arizona Kuiper Materials Imaging and Characterization Facility to support OSIRIS-REx sample science and much more.