Professor Jim Head is heading the 500-Day Design Reference Mission, which researches practices that would be necessary for 500 days on the moon. The project also helps to train the next generation of planetary scientists. WaTae Mickey ’26, a research assistant in Head’s lab, is researching the site where Apollo 15 landed. Logan Ramanathan ’28, another research assistant in the lab, is researching lunar surface power and surface interactions with rocket exhaust.

The Brown Daily Herald spoke to weather experts, including Professor Amanda Lynch and graduate student Maria Luìsa Rocha, to understand the distinction between the two winter weather events. “In short, all blizzards are snowstorms, but not all snowstorms meet the criteria to be classified as blizzards,” Maria noted.

A new study led by DEEPS Assistant Professor Emily H. G. Cooperdock and DEEPS 2024 REU alumn Ailani Bonilla investigates how nitrogen is stored in ultramafic (mantle) rocks from subduction zones. Their study tested whether serpentine, talc, or chlorite store most of the nitrogen in fluid-altered mantle rocks rocks, as has been proposed by previous researchers based on their sheet-like crystal structures. They found that while these minerals contain some nitrogen, they do not host the majority of it, indicating that a substantial portion resides in other minerals or sites within the rocks. This finding has important implications for models of nitrogen mobility and storage during subduction, metamorphism, and fluid-rock interactions.