How years of international collaboration led to Hope circling Mars

The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), the first led by an Arab nation, released its first detailed image of the planet on Feb. 14, 2021. The photo, taken by the mission’s Hope probe (Al Amal in Arabic), showed Mars at dawn as sunlight moved across the surface—just revealing the edges of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system.

The mission is led by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in the United Arab Emirates, alongside knowledge partners and experts from around the world. They include the at CU Boulder, Arizona State University, the University of California, Berkeley and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

For Noora Alsaeed, a scholar at MBRSC and a PhD student at LASP, Hope’s first glimpse of Mars brought the promise of more things to come. She wasn’t directly involved in the planning for the mission but hopes to use EMM data in her research.

“It was the best Valentine’s Day gift ever,” Alsaeed said. “The photo captured everything that EMM is going to study. You could see the dust lifting off the surface. You could see the clouds around the North and South poles.”

It was also a gift that was possible only because of international collaboration.

Beginning in 2015, Alsaeed, who grew up in Dubai, joined dozens of other young researchers and engineers from the MBRSC who traveled to the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder. Over five years, many of them developed, built and tested the Hope probe, and laid out its scientific goals working in collaboration with engineers and scientists at LASP.

In the process, these researchers learned the ins and outs of planetary science and aerospace engineering—from how carbon dioxide falls as snow over the Martian poles to how to design a propellant tank that can carry enough fuel to put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars.

The international effort has been a rousing success. Hope entered into orbit around Mars on Feb. 9 and is collecting data on Martian weather from all points on the planet at all times of day and seasons of the year. “This sort of mission is like a primordial soup for innovation, where you have all these diverse minds working together,” Alsaeed said.

Mohsen Mohammed Al Awadhi, EMM’s systems engineer, agreed. When he graduated from college in the UAE in 2010, there were few jobs for young Emiratis who wanted to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. So in 2015, he jumped at the chance to move to Colorado and eventually earn his master’s degree in aerospace engineering at CU Boulder—part of the UAE’s efforts to build a sustainable space program that would inspire Arab youth and engage with the worldwide space science community.

“We’re not just doing this to say we’re doing this,” Al Awadhi said. “We want to lead a mission that is unique and that is actually contributing to the scientific community.”

David Brain, a professor at LASP who studies Mars, saw that dedication when he visited the UAE in the leadup to the mission. At one point, the scientist spoke to a class of middle school girls about their nation’s voyage to Mars.

“I couldn’t get out of the room, they ;were so excited,” he said. “That engagement was astounding. I remember my own middle school experience of how uncool it was to show interest in things like that.”

That may be the true legacy of EMM, Alsaeed added—now, young people in the Arab world don’t have to travel thousands of miles from home to visit the stars.

“They already have the passion,” she said. “Now they feel like they can act on it.”

Principals
Pete Withnell of LASP; Omran Sharaf, Project Director, Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre

Funding
United Arab Emirates Space Agency

Collaboration + support
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder; Arizona State University; Space Sciences Lab at University of California, Berkeley

Learn more about this topic:

• How years of international collaboration led to Hope circling Mars
• Emirates Mars Mission to begin journey to the red planet
• Podcast: Buff Innovator Insights: Heather Reed & Pete Withnell

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Now, that’s one big cosmic explosion.

A research team led by Meredith MacGregor, assistant professor at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA), has observed the largest flare ever recorded from the sun’s nearest neighbor: the star Proxima Centauri.

Proxima Centauri is a “red dwarf” star that sits just four light-years from Earth. And on May 1, 2019, researchers saw it erupt in a record-setting explosion using a suite of five instruments in space and on the ground.

“The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds,” MacGregor said.

She added that such flares from Proxima Centauri might be more common than scientists think—bad news for any nearby lifeforms.

Principal investigator
Meredith MacGregor

Funding
National Science Foundation (NSF); NASA

Collaboration + support
Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy; Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences; Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP); National Solar Observatory

Learn more about this topic:
Humongous flare from sun’s nearest neighbor breaks records

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Good news for thirsty astronauts: Hidden pockets of ice might be much more common on the surface of the moon than scientists once suspected. That’s the conclusion of new research led by Paul Hayne, assistant professor in the .

Hayne and his colleagues examined the moon’s cold traps, or dark and shadowy regions of the lunar surface that might be capable of harboring water ice. And, the team estimates, there might be a huge number of these nooks and crannies spread across the moon—potentially 15,000 square feet of them, some just the size of pennies and others much larger.

“If we’re right, water is going to be more accessible for drinking water, for rocket fuel, everything that NASA needs water for,” Hayne said.

Principal investigator
Paul Hayne

Funding
NASA

Collaboration + support
CU Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences; Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP); Planetary Science Institute; Weizmann Institute of Science

Learn more about this topic:
Tiny moon shadows may harbor hidden stores of ice

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The University of Colorado has joined a new effort to help safeguard the newest frontier in national security—space. Researchers from CU Boulder and other CU campuses are participating in the Space Force University Partnership, a program led by the United States Space Force, the youngest branch of the armed forces.

The U.S. Space Force, launched in 2019, relies on service members called Guardians who often have backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Through this research partnership, CU Boulder will expand its offerings preparing tech-savvy young people with an eye for the stars.

Universities were selected based on four criteria: the quality of STEM degree offerings and spacerelated research laboratories and initiatives; a robust ROTC program; a diverse student population; and degrees and programming designed to support members of the military, veterans and their families as they pursue higher education.

Colorado’s aerospace economy—the largest per capita in the nation—and CU’s related workforce and research capabilities make CU an ideal partner in developing Space Force’s workforce and advancing the nation’s aerospace and national security capabilities.

Learn more about this topic:
Newest frontier in national security—space—gets boost at CU Boulder

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CU Boulder leads $15M NASA institute making hypersonic entry safer

Researchers at CU Boulder are leading a new $15 million, multipartner institute with NASA over the next five years to improve entry, descent and landing technologies for exploring other planets.

The Advanced Computational Center for Entry System Simulation (ACCESS) institute was announced in March. It will focus on thermal protection systems, which shield spacecraft from the aerodynamic heating experienced during hypersonic entry into the atmosphere, in which spacecraft reach speeds up to 17,000 miles per hour. The work is critical to exploration of nearby planets like Mars and beyond, which will require safe placement of large payloads on their surfaces.

The overall project is led by Professor Iain Boyd of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. Boyd is also director of the hypersonic vehicles research area within the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the director of the new Center for National Security Initiatives on campus.

“We are thrilled to have this opportunity to work in partnership with colleagues across the country on the incredibly challenging and important problem of hypersonic entry system analysis for NASA,” Boyd said.

Boyd said the goal of the center is to significantly advance our ability to use computer simulations to design and ensure the safety of the entry systems required for NASA space exploration missions. These systems protect a payload—whether astronauts, equipment or scientific instruments—during the harsh flight of a space capsule into the atmosphere of a distant planet or on its return to Earth.

To ensure safety, NASA has incredibly demanding entry system reliability requirements that cannot be fully met with today’s approaches, Boyd said. Meeting those goals will require interdisciplinary work in the fields of aerospace engineering, chemistry, radiation, materials, structures and reliability, Boyd said, all within a single, comprehensive computational framework.

The Space Technology Research Institute program started in 2017 and aims to advance technologies for exploring the moon, Mars and beyond in a variety of fields and approaches. At the same time, the program expands the U.S. talent base in research and development.

The new ACCESS institute is one of two center-scale research projects in hypersonics announced by NASA in 2021. The other project is related to high power electric propulsion systems and includes CU Boulder and Boyd as a partner as well.

Principal investigator
Iain Boyd

Funding
NASA

Collaboration + support
NASA; Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences; Hypersonic Vehicles Interdisciplinary Research Theme; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Kentucky in Lexington; University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; international collaborators from England, Italy and Portugal.

Learn more about this topic:

• CU Boulder to lead new $15M NASA Space Tech Research Institute
• Podcast: Buff Innovator Insights: Dr. Iain Boyd

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New international network explores how odors lead to actions

CU Boulder is leading a groundbreaking new international research network dubbed , which includes 16 scientists from 16 institutions around the world working together to better understand the brain and its evolution by reverse-engineering how it interprets odors. Part of the Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) Program, the five-year project is aimed at understanding how animals use information from odors in their environment to guide behavior, with far-ranging implications for our understanding of the human brain.

The network will examine all the steps involved in how an odor stimulus is encoded by the brain and then activates the motor circuits to produce a behavioral response in an animal. The model species they are working with, including fruit flies and mice, will help the researchers understand these same steps in humans.

“The chemical sensing process (i.e., smell) evolved in the very earliest life forms on Earth,” said John Crimaldi, lead principal investigator on the network and professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. “The idea here is that all brain evolution has taken place in the presence of chemical sensing. And so it’s thought to be a primal portal from which to view brain function.”

While Crimaldi and CU Boulder have previously received significant awards to research how animals find the source of an odor, this project is much broader and aims to understand the whole brain and the mechanism that goes into a behavioral response to smelling something.

Smell is the least understood sense, and humans have struggled to replicate odor-based searches with machines, Crimaldi said. Doing so, however, would allow robots to take over treacherous duties instead of humans or dogs, unlocking a new area of advancement for autonomous systems. These robots could one day rescue a person buried in an avalanche, locate valuable natural resources, or find chemical weapons and explosives on their own, for example.

This network is among the largest the College of Engineering has ever been involved in, said Keith Molenaar, interim dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. He said the work would result in transformational research around our understanding of the brain that could also lead to cures for diseases that connect to our sense of smell—or even understanding why loss of smell is a symptom of some diseases like COVID-19.

As an engineer, Crimaldi said he never expected to end up working in neuroscience, but it turns out a lot of engineering is involved in understanding what odors look like. He currently studies fluid mechanics from a theoretical perspective, using lasers in a nonintrusive way to measure flows—like odors—through air and liquids. He’s looked at everything from why coral reproduction underwater is successful to how animals can tell where a smell is coming from.

“Life forms have evolved to take advantage of specific opportunities and constraints that are imposed by their physical environment,” Crimaldi said. “I like to say we don’t just use physics to understand biology or ecology, or the brain. We also use evolutionary processes that have evolved in animals to help us understand details of what’s going on in the physical world.”

Principal investigator
John Crimaldi

Funding
National Science Foundation (NSF); Canadian Institutes of Health Research; UK Research and Innovation Medical Research Council

Collaboration + support
Arizona State University; Caltech; Duke University; Francis Crick Institute; Lehigh University; McGill University; NYU School of Medicine; Penn State University; Salk Institute; Scripps Research; University of Hertfordshire; University of Pittsburgh; University of Utah; Weill Cornell Medical College; and Yale University

Learn more about this topic:

• Only the nose knows: New international network explores how odors lead to actions
• Podcast: Buff Innovator Insights: Dr. John Crimaldi

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How lessons learned under lockdown could lead to a brighter future

Imagine a future in which scientific progress moves lightning fast, with experts from diverse fields and distant lands joining forces to solve global problems in months, not years.

With some streets transformed to their historic multipurpose intent, cyclists, pedestrians, electric vehicles—even diners—would safely share them, yielding healthier air and communities.

Thoughtfully designed digital tools would help keep more students engaged, whether in a classroom or at home.

And mental health would be acknowledged as something as critical as physical health.

Despite its undeniably tragic consequences, the COVID-19 pandemic opened a window into these possibilities, delivering lessons that could pave the way toward a brighter future.

“COVID changed us, forcing us to cross boundaries that prior to the pandemic seemed impenetrable,” said CU Boulder Provost Russ Moore, a professor of integrative physiology, pointing to the swift, cross-campus response to the virus. “My greatest hope is that this spirit of collaboration lasts.”

We asked CU scholars about the lessons they have learned and how they’re using them to effect change.

Fast-tracking discovery

Roy Parker, director, BioFrontiers Institute

Parker has worked with virologists to develop new saliva-based COVID-19 tests, with computer scientists to model vaccination distribution strategies, with civil engineers to craft a wastewater surveillance system, and with an olfaction expert to explore a new diagnostic based on sense of smell. The research was shared publicly via online portals known as preprint servers, inviting peer review and collaboration, and shaping public policy long before traditional journal publication would have been possible.

Parker intends to continue to encourage the use of preprint servers (as well as conventional peer-reviewed journals) to share research swiftly and circumvent silos between disciplines.

“The pace of science sped up during COVID, and we are now looking at other ways to continue the valuable synergies that emerged.”

Illuminating mental health

June Gruber, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience

Gruber has led a national call to action to “flatten the mental health curve” by boosting support for treatment and research. Midlockdown, she notes, U.S. adults were eight times more likely to experience mental distress than prepandemic, with one-third experiencing significant anxiety or depression. Unable to physically spend time with loved ones or counselors, they had to seek help in different forms, including telehealth and peer-led support groups.

The pandemic, Gruber said, revealed the inadequacies of the “old mental health order” and forced a conversation about problems that are often stigmatized.

“With mental health challenges amplified, we were pressed to confront the mental health crisis and catalyze overdue changes in how we research and treat psychopathology. The revolution is overdue.”

Reimagining streets

Kevin Krizek, professor of environmental design

Cities from Boulder to Paris repurposed their empty streets, turning space historically reserved for vehicles into bike lanes, pedestrian shopping routes and outdoor restaurant seating. “Almost overnight, the purpose of streets changed,” Krizek said, noting that before the late 1920s, streets were a center for commerce and socialization. He said that while cars and highways have their place (particularly for longer trips), about half of car trips cover less than 4 miles, and thousands of U.S. jobs can be reached in 20 minutes on a bike. He’s now calling for transportation planners to continue the outside-the-box thinking that emerged amid the pandemic.

“This was an ‘aha moment’ for many people. They were thinking, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of space in streets that is a valuable resource that we can better leverage to solve some of the current problems that are plaguing society.’”

Recalibrating education

José Ramón Lizárraga, assistant professor of learning sciences

News stories abounded with observations about the downsides of online K–12 education, including the lack of internet access required for students to participate. While acknowledging these pitfalls, Lizárraga also saw a different view. The teachers he trains were able to tutor students in other countries. And here at home, some students who never raised their hand or spoke up during in-person class found new ways to engage and collaborate online. He believes it’s time to rethink what meaningful participation really looks like, whether in class or remote. And he hopes that the promise of digital technology illuminated during the pandemic can be incorporated into all types of learning.

“One of my biggest hopes is that we can begin to saturate our learning spaces with different kinds of learning and not completely pivot away from using digital tools and back entirely to analog. Not all learning needs to take place in person. And when we are in person, we should make it meaningful.”

Principal investigators
Jane Gruber; Kevin Krizek; José Ramón Lizárraga; Roy Parker

Learn more about this topic:
CU Boulder COVID-19 Stories

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A compound produced in the gut when we eat red meat plays a key role in boosting heart disease risk with age, suggests research published by integrative physiology Professor Doug Seals.

Eat a steak and your gut bacteria break it down, churning out a metabolic byproduct called trimethylamine, which the liver converts to trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). People with higher blood levels of TMAO are known to be twice as likely to have a heart attack and tend to die earlier.

But scientists haven’t known why.

When the researchers studied 101 older adults and 22 young adults, they found that TMAO levels rise with age, and adults with higher blood levels had worse artery function and more vessel damage. When fed TMAO directly, young mice swiftly began to look like old mice in terms of vessel health.

Even a young vegan produces some TMAO. But over time, the study suggests, eating excess animal products may prompt you to make too much, exacerbating vascular decline.

Principal investigators
Vienna Brunt; Doug Seals

Funding
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Learn more about this topic:
What makes arteries age? Study explores new link to gut bacteria, diet

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When access to free and low-cost birth control is improved, the percentage of young women who leave high school before graduating falls by double digits, according to a CU Boulder study that followed 170,000 women for up to seven years.

The study focused on the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI), a 2009 program that widely expanded access to contraception across the state.

It found that high school graduation rates increased from 88% before CFPI was implemented to 92% after, and about half of that gain was due to the program. Improvements in rates among Hispanic women were even greater. In all, the program decreased the percentage of young women who left school before graduating by 14%.

Put another way, an additional 3,800 Colorado women born between 1994 and 1996 received a high school diploma by age 20 to 22 as a result of CFPI.

Principal investigator
Amanda Stevenson

Funding
Eunice Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Collaboration + support
U.S. Census Bureau; University of Colorado Denvery

Learn more about this topic:
Greater access to birth control boosts high school graduation rates

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Pregnant women exposed to higher levels of air pollution have babies who grow unusually fast, putting on fat that puts them at risk of weight problems later in life, new CU Boulder research suggests.

Women chronically exposed to pollution are known to deliver smaller babies. But in the first year, evidence suggests, they race to catch up, with that accelerated weight gain boosting risk of diabetes, heart disease and childhood obesity.

The researchers followed 123 Hispanic mother-infant pairs, periodically measuring the babies’ weight, height and fat distribution. They also tracked mothers’ prenatal exposure to the pollutants PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide and ozone.

Babies exposed to more air pollution prenatally had greater changes in weight and body fatness in the first six months of life.

Researchers believe the pollutants inflame mothers’ organs, influencing fetal development and affecting gene expression.

“Higher rates of obesity among certain groups are not simply a byproduct of personal choices like exercise and calories,” author Tanya Alderete said. “This study suggests it can also relate to how much of an environmental burden one carries.”

Principal investigator
Tanya Alderete

Funding
Gerber Foundation; Health Effects Institute; National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Collaboration + support
Department of Pediatrics, The Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, University of Southern California

Learn more about this topic:
Air pollution exposure during pregnancy may boost babies’ obesity risk

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