Physics and Astronomy Department

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NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover mission serves as ultimate test for working from home (planet)

Perseverance is the third Mars rover for Melissa Rice, a planetary scientist at Western Washington University. And the fact that she’s based in Bellingham, Wash., more than 1,200 miles from Pasadena, means she’s had plenty of…

2020-07-29
NASA’s big move to search for life on Mars – and to bring rocks home

This summer, NASA is taking the next giant leap in the search for signs of life beyond Earth.

On July 30, if the weather in Florida holds, NASA will launch its most sophisticated and ambitious spacecraft to Mars: the aptly named…

2020-07-29
Nasa Mars rover: How Perseverance will hunt for signs of past life

A survey of the minerals in Jezero Crater by Dr Briony Horgan of Purdue University, Dr Melissa Rice of Western Washington University (both scientists on the mission) and colleagues, revealed carbonate deposits…

2020-07-27
Vikings on Mars 2020-06-08
Visiting Perseverance During Its Final Week at JPL

In January 2020, my research team, composed of undergraduate and graduate physics and geology students from Western Washington University, experienced the opportunity of a lifetime. We traveled to Pasadena, California to meet other scientists…

2020-05-14
Chemistry educators try ‘ungrading’ techniques to help students learn

Designing rubrics after midterms gave students in Linda Grabill’s class at Western Washington University insight into the grading process. “I had students tell me, ‘I’ve been studying wrong this whole time!’ or ‘I’ve been taking exams wrong. I hadn’t been thinking about demonstrating…

2020-04-28
WWU Gets New $190k NASA Grant for Future Science Teachers and Aerospace Professionals 2020-02-03
Curiosity rover overcomes temporary freeze after ‘attitude adjustment’

"In the images from orbit, it looks like someone drew a thick straight line with a dark felt marker on the southeastern side of the butte," wrote Melissa Rice, planetary geologist at Western Washington University in a mission blog post. "From the ground, it looks like a shallow ditch filled with…

2020-01-24
Carolina Alvarado to Present 'Identifying physics practices to redefine our learning environment for physics ' on Nov. 21 2019-11-19
A black hole stars: New discovery adds to our map of the universe

Science is at its heart a treasure hunt.

A pair of astrophysicists, Carles Badenes of the University of Pittsburgh and Todd Thompson of Ohio State University, showed the value of pursuing the treasure of hidden knowledge in a paper published recently.

With the help of a team of…

2019-11-15
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