Dr. Afshin Khan: Crops on Mars

by Emily Harari Every 4th of July, many Americans turn their gaze to the night sky. From a pop of color and a quick clap like thunder, fireworks unveil themselves. In addition to gunpowder, a lesser known ingredient called perchlorates are responsible for the mesmerizing explosions. Perchlorates are salts containing an ion called perchlorate – a chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms. These salts can serve as oxidants for fireworks and explosives, but also can be toxic to living […]

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Dr. Craig Hargrove Leads Mission to Moon

A CubeSat mission led by Dr. Craig Hardgrove was recently selected by NASA as part of its ongoing program of lunar exploration. About the size of a shoebox, the LunaH-Map mission is being developed by a team at Arizona State University with a goal of producing a detailed map of water ice deposits across the moon. CubeSat missions provide low-cost opportunities for investigators to develop their own space-based experiments, and the selection of LunaH-Map represents a big step forward for […]

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