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Comet Discovered at Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter

Dedicated only six months ago as the nation’s largest instrument of its kind devoted to public outreach and citizen science, ...

http://uanews.org/story/comet-discovered-mt-lemmon-skycenter
Tucson tech: Solar innovator gets $1M boost

With a major shakeout still ongoing in the solar-energy industry, new sun-harvesting technologies...

http://azstarnet.com/business/local/tucson-tech-solar-innovator-gets-m-boost/article_0fd03879-7510-5d43-914b-986b619ff292.html
Just Coming Through: Asteroid Toutatis

On the evening of Dec. 11, asteroid Toutatis whizzed by the Earth at a comfortable yet – cosmically speaking – close distance of...

http://uanews.org/story/just-coming-through-asteroid-toutatis

Just Coming Through: Asteroid Toutatis

UA astrophotographer Adam Block caught asteroid Toutatis with the Schulman Telescope at the UA Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter as it zipped by the Earth on Dec. 11. At three miles long, the peanut-shaped space rock is about half as big as the one believed to have slammed into the Caribbean 65 million years ago, sealing the fate of the dinosaurs.

UA Astronomers Glimpse Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn

Peering deeper into the cosmos than ever before, an international team of astronomers found the most distant galaxies to date, observed as they were more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 percent of its present age. The observations show a smooth decline in the number of galaxies with increasing look-back time to about 380 million years after the big bang and support the idea that galaxies assembled continuously over time.

Moths Wired Two Ways to Take Advantage of Floral Potluck

Moths are able to enjoy a pollinator's buffet of flowers – in spite of being among the insect world's picky eaters – because of two distinct "channels" in their brains, scientists at the UA and University of Washington report. The giant hawk moths known to scientists as Manduca sexta are innately attracted to flowers with a particular scent profile, said study co-author John G. Hildebrand, Regents’ Professor and head of the UA department of neuroscience.

Countdown to Power Down

David Lowenthal, the UA's associate department head for computer science, is leading a research team working to develop a software system that will help improve performance of supercomputers. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Lowenthal's work is in direct response to government and industry needs to enable supercomputing applications to reach high performance within a fixed power budget.

Improving Software for Asteroid Detection

Under a newly funded grant, UA computer scientists Alon Efrat and Jonathan Myers will work to improve tracking methods and computer algorithms meant to detect asteroids bound for Earth. The UA researchers are collaborating with the Minor Planet Center, located at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts.

First Rain on World’s Largest Artificial Watershed

The Landscape Evolution Observatory inside the UA’s Biosphere 2 provides researchers with the first opportunity to study how water, microbes, soil and plants interact in a setting realistic enough to improve global climate models for years to come. The world's largest artificial watershed experienced its first - artificial - rain on Nov. 29 during LEO's formal commissioning.

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