University of Arizona in the News

In April 2021, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter took flight and opened up a new era of off-the-ground exploration on the Red Planet. A team led by engineers at the University of Arizona wants to fly even higher with an ambitious concept for a motorless sailplane that could soar above the Martian surface. A new paper details a preliminary design for the craft which would be equipped with sensors and cameras and use wind energy to fly for hours or even days.

So far this summer, emergency responders have already responded to 455 heat calls throughout the greater Fort Worth area – a 115.6% increase compared to the same time frame last summer. "There are quality of life impacts from heat," said Ladd Keith, assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Arizona. "It could be shifting exercise or forgoing exercise altogether, limiting kids' ability to play on playgrounds because it's just too hot for them to go outside."

COVID vaccine makers are developing new boosters for a fall campaign. But some experts question the FDA's decision to tell companies to make shots against the BA.4/5 subvariants. "Are we trying to be too perfect and then costing us months as a result of that? You know, if we were starting over and all things were being equal and BA.1 and BA.4, 5 could be, you know, developed at equal pace, no question, BA.4, 5 is better.

NASA on Tuesday released five images from the early work of the James Webb Space Telescope. The pictures highlighted the great potential of the telescope to plumb the secrets of deep space. "I think we will be able to find planets that we think are interesting – you know, good possibilities for life," said Megan Mansfield, an astronomer at the University of Arizona. "But we won't necessarily be able to just identify life immediately."

The first image from Webb was shown on Monday in an event at the White House by President Biden on Monday. And it was not just any pretty picture. Marcia Rieke, a Regents Professor of Astronomy of the University of Arizona, expressed amazement that the Webb instruments had taken only two hours to achieve what had taken Hubble days and days of observation.

This month will mark a new chapter in the search for extraterrestrial life, when the most powerful space telescope yet built will start spying on planets that orbit other stars. Astronomers hope that the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal whether some of those planets harbor atmospheres that might support life. Megan Mansfield, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, is one of many scientists who will study seven planets that orbit a star called Trappist-1.

In addition to investigating the wealth of planets outside of our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope is peering back to some of the earliest galaxies that formed after the Big Bang and the very structure of the universe itself. Launched in December, the Webb is allowing researchers to get four times closer to the Big Bang than the Hubble Space Telescope, according to Marcia Rieke, a Regents Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera on the Webb telescope.

Breathtaking pictures that include the deepest-ever infrared view of ancient galaxies offer a preview of the spectacular science in store for the most powerful space observatory in history. Preliminary tests have shown that "all of Webb’s instruments are achieving even better sensitivities than we projected" and that the performance of its mirror is similarly exceeding expectations, according to says NIRCam’s principal investigator Marcia Rieke, a Regents Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona.

Asteroid Bennu, the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, led by the University of Arizona, kept surprising the mission team while the spacecraft studied the asteroid from a distance. The biggest surprise, however, came when OSIRIS-REx swooped in to grab a sample of material from Bennu and encountered not a solid surface but one that gave way so easily the sampler arm sank 1 1/2 feet into it within seconds.

The American Academy Of Pediatrics is calling for support for breastfeeding for two years or more. Some are applauding the change, but experts say many moms feel defeated and dismayed. "For women who are not able to breastfeed or pump breastmilk for myriad reasons, now being told that they should strive to breastfeed or pump for even longer is going to further the endless cycle of guilt that they may already feel for not being able to fulfill this element of being a mother," said organizational psychologist Allison S.