In case you students are too busy with your own studies to stay up to date with our school’s aerospace engineering department, tune into this article. We all know about Mars but scientists at CU Boulder are trying to know more. So, about a year ago we launched a space shuttle that just recently slid into Mars’ orbit. A mere 442 million mile one-way trip.

The reason I like to bring things like this up is because most students don’t realize how awesome of a research university we are, in all categories. For example, we’re the number-one funded public university in the nation by NASA. That not only means we outperformed all other universities in America, but the judge of that was NASA. Explanation for who NASA is and how important they are should not be needed.

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) is the mission our colleagues are on and they’re planning on finding out more about long-term effects from cosmic dust in the atmosphere of Mars. This is the first case of measuring the composition of dust from an Oort Cloud comet. Is it just me or is our school the Peyton Manning of Universities? Breaking records and being pioneers in research is nearly a daily routine.

“They call this comet encounter a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it’s more like once-in-a-million years,” said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Nick Schneider. it doesn’t take an astronomy nerd to appreciate the fact we had the students and faculty able to make a once-in-a-million year observation, and from the obsercation make analysis, results, and a discussion. Hopefully this discussion will give us even more brownie points with NASA. So, if you’re not involved with the research we have going on, at least learn about some of the nationally leading research we have to offer!

Cameron Neptune