University of Arizona in the News

A University of Arizona team has found that an interesting pathway could have led the moon fragment to reach Earth's orbital space.

Members of the OSIRIS-REx science team will be honored during Saturday's football game at Arizona Stadium, a little over a month after they scored a spectacular touchdown of their own.

Chris Impey, a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, writes that after a journey of seven years and nearly 4 billion miles, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed gently in the Utah desert on the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, with a precious payload. The spacecraft brought back a sample from the asteroid Bennu. Impey also compares the price of several elements and minerals used in scientific research.

Ancient caves mark the beginning of recorded burial rituals, but there's still so much we don't know about the history of human graves. "By at least 120,000 years ago we have what we believe are deliberately buried human bodies," said Mary Stiner, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona.

Experts say climate change is pushing the Sonoran Desert to the brink, with saguaro cacti as a bellwether of the impending disaster.

Dr. Esther Sternberg, research director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine and director of the UArizona Institute on Place, Wellbeing & Performance, writes that to reduce stress and achieve flow, create quiet spaces for micro-meditations and mini-rituals.

The Woman of the Year Selection Committee has announced the national Top 30 honorees for the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. University of Arizona diver Delaney Schnell is among the nominees.

More than 270 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAPs or UFOs, were made to the U.S. government in a recent eight-month period, the Department of Defense said in a recent report to Congress. Chris Impey, Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, discusses the findings.

The University of Arizona College of Engineering on Thursday signed onto a collaboration with the non-profit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance to study U.S. capabilities in "near space" – the area 12 to 62 miles above the Earth's surface – and develop effective sensors for warning, tracking and targeting potential threats in that environment, as well as weapon systems to neutralize those threats.

Research led by University of Arizona researchers Mark Brusseau and Bo Guo found soils of all types serve as a "significant reservoir for PFAS" – so-called "forever chemicals" used widely in consumer and industrial products that have been linked to health issues including cancer, developmental effects and reproductive disorders – particularly in the vadose zone, the area just above the groundwater table.