JSC renames Rocket Park after former director, Baker Institute fellow Abbey
NASA’s Johnson Space Center has renamed its Rocket Park after Apollo-era engineer and former center director George W.S. Abbey, a senior fellow in space policy at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Orbital harmony limits late arrival of water on TRAPPIST-1 planets
Seven Earth-sized planets orbit the star TRAPPIST-1 in near-perfect harmony, and U.S. and European researchers have used that harmony to determine how much physical abuse the planets could have withstood in their infancy.
NASA’s Shannon Walker ’87 returns with gifts from space
NASA astronaut and Rice alumnus Shannon Walker ’87 returned to campus Oct. 12 to present more than a dozen Rice-related mementos that flew with her during her latest six-month mission to the International Space Station.
Nightside radio could help reveal exoplanet details
Rice scientists enhance models that could be used to detect magnetosphere activity on exoplanets. The Rice model adds data from nightside activity that could increase signals by at least an order of magnitude.
How planets form controls elements essential for life
How a planet comes together has implications for whether it retains the nitrogen, carbon and water that eventually give rise to life.
Rice’s Walker beams down from space station
Rice alumna Shannon Walker and crewmate Kate Rubins, aboard the International Space Station, joined a conversation with students in Houston, Scotland and Ecuador.
Fermi space telescope offers 'best look ever' at giant flare
Intense light from the April 2020 eruption of a neutron star in a nearby galaxy has given astronomers their first clear look at a type of gamma-ray burst known as a magnetar giant flare.
Christmas week: Worlds will align for spectacular heavenly sight
Early in the evening of Dec. 21, people the world over will get a chance to see Jupiter and Saturn line up closer together in Earth's night sky than they have been since just before daybreak on the morning of March 4, 1226.
Meet the Rice alum in charge of NASA's prelaunch quarantine program
NASA flight surgeon Rob Mulcahy '08 was in charge of the prelaunch quarantine -- a precaution doubly important during the COVID-19 pandemic -- for the space agency's first manned mission to launch from the U.S. in almost a decade.
Spacecraft is designed to survive fire, surfs its own wave
Patrick Rodi's new idea for surfing is far out, fast and white hot.
