Category: News

It is with sadness that we report the passing of UCLA professor and distinguished astronomer, Michael Jura. A facet to the Department of Physics and Astronomy and an active member of iPLEX, Mike always encouraged the interdisciplinary blending of planetary science and astronomy. He made major contributions to the fields of theoretical and observational astronomy and was influential in the development of infrared astronomy and the Infrared Laboratory at UCLA, which now has instruments in many terrestrial and space telescopes. His presence will be missed in both the fields of astronomy and planetary science and within the UCLA community.

We leave you with a brief video that Mike recorded for iPLEX in 2012 explaining his attraction to science at a young age and the wonder that he held for studying the cosmos, in particular white dwarfs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeyNXPBdWGw

UCLA scientists Ed Young, Issaku Kohl, Paul Warren, and their collaborators are featured in Science today (January 29, 2016) with their paper “Oxygen isotopic evidence for vigorous mixing during the Moon-forming giant impact.” Using their new Panorama high-resolution mass spectrometer, which is housed at UCLA, the team has performed ultra-high precision oxygen isotope analyses of lunar samples. The compositions match those of Earth’s mantle rocks to within a few parts-per-million (in the Δ17O parameter), demonstrating that the Earth and Moon formed from the exact same reservoir of well-mixed material. Their data also constrain the composition of the so-called “late veneer” materials added to the Earth after the Moon-forming impact.

Read more about the science article and see the EPSS team on the UCLA Newsroom website.

Together with iPLEX, the group will be hosting a meeting on April 21-22 of this year, which will focus on the isotopic, spectrographic, and dynamic connections between asteroids, comets, and meteorites that fall to Earth. To read more about the workshop, visit the website here: The Asteroid-Meteorite Connection.

UC President’s Postdoctoral Program Fellow Dr. Aomawa Shields was awarded a TED Fellowship, which included giving a TED talk about how she searches for clues that life might exist elsewhere in the universe by examining the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. The classically trained actress-turned-astronomer also discusses her passion for engaging young women in the sciences through theater and art.

From the Sun to the Edge of the Solar System

Dr. David J. McComas, ’86

Assistant Vice President, Space Science & Engineering, Southwest Research Institute
Professor of Physics, University of Texas San Antonio

UCLA geochemist Beth Ann Bell and her colleagues have dug deep into the annals of Earth’s history and turned up the result that life may have begun much earlier than previously thought. In the study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they examined microscopic graphite inside tiny, ancient zircon grains from the Jack Hills in Western Australia. The graphite samples, which are made of carbon, contain information about the chemistry of the planet during the time they were formed. This chemistry, in turn, can help scientists decipher if biologic processes were at work. Although there are several processes that can form graphite, Bell and her colleagues favor the possibility that their sample formed as organic matter and was slowly incorporated into Earth’s geology through plate tectonics.

Their results suggest that life began 4.1 billion years ago, more than 300 million years earlier than previously thought. The research also suggests that early Earth was a much more hospitable environment than the typical hot, lifeless, and sterile planet that is imagined for that time period. To read more about the study, check out the UCLA Newsroom press release and Science News.

International Observe the Moon Night at UCLA was held on September 19th, 2015 at the UCLA Planetarium on the roof of the Math Sciences Building. The crowd of attendees was treated to two outstanding talks given in the planetarium by UCLA and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) scientist Dr. Jean-Pierre Williams and UCLA graduate student and lunar scientist, Raquel Nuno. Attendees learned about the newest science results from NASA’s LRO mission and participated in hands-on activities describing the relative size and distance of the Moon and Earth, how the phases of the Moon occur, and were able to use an infrared camera similar to the one on LRO.

After presentations concluded, attendees were treated to view the Moon from the roof of Math Sciences through five different telescopes, including UCLA’s 14-inch observatory telescope. To see images from the event, visit the IOMN 2015 Gallery.

NASA’s Dawn Mission, which is led by UCLA Professor Chris Russell, reached the dwarf planet Ceres earlier this year after its previous rendezvous with asteroid Vesta. It is now observing Ceres from 2700 miles about the surface and returning the closest images that have ever been taken of the object. A one-minute video animation has been produced with the images, showing the object’s mysterious “bright spots” and its heavily cratered terrain. To read the full article, visit http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-led-nasa-mission-provides-closest-ever-look-at-dwarf-planet-ceres.

UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences graduate student Carolyn Crow has been named recipient of the 2015 Gordon McKay Award of the Meteoritical Society.  The award honors the memory of experimental petrologist and lunar scientist Gordon A. McKay and is given each year to the student who gives the best oral presentation at the annual meeting of the society.  Carolyn’s talk in Berkeley was entitled “I-Xe degassing ages of terrestrial and lunar impact zircons”.