Faculty members Keri Hoadley and Casey DeRoo were at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory last week for the UV Science and Instrumentation Workshop, which aims to define the technology and science for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a future NASA flagship mission. Outside the public auditorium, JPL has an engineering model of Explorer 1 which has been restored and mounted on a mock-up of the rocket that delivered it into orbit. It was a great opportunity to have University of Iowa faculty visit our legacy of Explorer 1 while “on the job” for their current research!

Several students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy were candidates for degrees at the University of Iowa Spring Commencement Ceremonies on May 9, 10 and 11, 2024.

Professor Jun Wang and Aerospace Principal Engineer Richard Dvorsky were among others recognized at the Faculty & Staff Awards Ceremony held on April 30, 2024, at Hancher Auditorium.

Voyager was operational again after receiving history’s most impressive and long-distance software patch. After falling silent in November, the Voyager spacecraft is operational again after receiving history’s most impressive and long-distance software patch. Bill Kurth, Research Scientist at the University of Iowa who has been a member of the Voyager science team since 1974, said “We were all ecstatic to re-establish two-way communications with Voyager 1.”