The Department of Physics participated in making Operation Military Kids University 2015 a success: http://www.news.wisc.edu/23844. Wonders of Physics student workers Emily Ehlerding and Jake Nesbit helped with hands-on demonstrations. Wisconsin 4-H Military Kids programs support the nearly 15,000 Wisconsin youth in military families. To learn more about Wisconsin 4-H Military Kids and the opportunities available to Wisconsin youth, visit http://fyi.uwex.edu/wiomk/.
Month: June 2015
Dr. Kurt Retherford (BS ’94) Exploring Europa
Dr. Kurt Retherford, BS ’94, is the lead scientist for one of nine instruments that NASA recently selected to include on its next mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. While an undergraduate researcher in the Physics department (Scherb & Roesler labs) he began studying the moons of Jupiter. Now at the Southwest Research Inst., he recently used the Hubble Space Telescope to co-discover evidence for large plumes of water vapor emitted from Europa’s icy surface that may connect to a habitable subsurface ocean.
UW Physics Students Rock the LHC
As the Large Hadron Colider nears data taking at a record 13 TeV, graduate students have some fun. Can you identify the two from UW?
Garage Physics launches high altitude balloon
Garage Physics launch and recover a high altitude ballon. Pictured are Brett Unks and undergraduates Bella Nasirudin and Catherine Tuanqui at the launch site, Governor Nelson Park in Middleton. The balloon was recovered in Edgerton after a couple hour flight. The payload featured a digital temperature logger, an Android phone running Justin Vandenbroucke’s cosmic ray detector app., an external camera, and a GPS unit. Also participating in the development were Asst. Prof. Justin Vandenbroucke, plant pathology graduate student Alex Biligri, and Physics graduate student Shaun Alsum.