LUMIO is a newly approved CubeSat mission to observe meteoroid impacts on the lunar farside. This week, the ESA approved the next stage of the Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer (LUMIO) CubeSat mission, meaning it could be ready for launch as early as 2027. In 2023, Postdoctoral Research Associate Aleksandra Sokołowska was selected to be a member of the LUMIO Science Team. She shared her excitement for the project, saying "Being a part of this mission in its early stages has been incredibly fun and rewarding because members of our Science Team come from many different countries, work collaboratively, and the areas of expertise are very diverse. This final mission approval means that the journey continues."

A recent NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts award will provide $2 million over two years to continue technology development of the Mycotecture Off Planet project in preparation for a potential future demonstration mission. With support from the 2018 Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM team, the project is developing technologies that could “grow” habitats on the Moon and beyond using fungi.

China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth on Tuesday, June 25th, with the first ever samples retrieved from the far side of the moon. Professor James Head spoke with CNN about the significance of these samples and their importance for the international research community, saying "It’s a gold mine… a treasure chest.”

Professor Jim Head commented on China's Chang'e-6 Moon-lander samples, saying, "Obtaining dates and compositional information from the many hundreds of fragments sampled by the Chang’e-6 drill and scoop is like a having treasure chest full of critical parts of lunar history, and will very likely revolutionize our view of the entire Moon."

Trailblazer of the Week is an ongoing series showcasing the diversity of experience and expertise that supports the collective determination of the Lunar Trailblazer mission. The series recently highlighted Kierra Wilk, DEEPS PhD student working with Trailblazer Co-Investigator Carle Pieters to investigate the spectral signature of water on the Moon.

Professor Jim Head spoke with CGTN Europe about China's Chang'e–6 mission and exploring the far side of the Moon.

The Brown Daily Herald highlights the upcoming Space Horizons conference, exploring topics at the intersection of space and ecology.

Professor Jack Mustard spoke with Scientific American about the Mars Sample Return program and NASA's recent update. “There are aspects of solar system evolution that can only be done through the return of samples [from Mars]."

Dr. Sierra (Wiegman) Brown holds a B.S. (2016) in Geophysics and Geochemistry from SUNY Fredonia, and M.S. (2018) and Ph.D. (2022) degrees in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences from Brown University. Brown is also an enrolled member of the Shinnecock Nation, and draws on the practice of “Two-Eyed Seeing” to provide unique insights that integrate indigenous and western approaches to knowledge.

DEEPS Professor John Mustard recently shared his opinion with Nature about NASA's new considerations for the Perseverance rover's mission, saying the rocks currently on board are “great, but they’re not sufficient to be the transformative samples that we want them to be.”

Professor Jim Head spoke with China Global Television Network on Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Lunar Mission in the South Pole area of the Moon.

Postdoctoral Research Associate Aleksandra Sokołowska has successfully applied to Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions Fellowship, and was selected as one of the 1,249 experienced postdoctoral researchers from over eight-thousand applicants for this prestigious opportunity. UK Research and Innovation guarantees funding for successful UK-based projects despite the UK not having been fully associated with Horizon Europe back in 2023. Alex will be hosted by the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London to pursue her original research project, “iPMS: Impacts Probing Martian Subsurface". Sokołowska explained, "As a Fellow I will be developing a new method of decoding this message, which will involve extracting information from planetary images as well as conducting numerical experiments of impact cratering. What is really exciting is that we continuously find new impacts on Mars, and their depths of excavation fall in the range of shallow subsurface depths which are still largely unexplored. One of the main goals of my work is to find out to what an extent this new technique will help us close that sensing gap."

Associate Professor Ingrid Daubar and colleagues recently published a new paper in Space Science Reviews titled “Planned Geological Investigations of the Europa Clipper Mission.” The publication outlines the geological investigations planned for the Europa Clipper mission, which aims to assess Europa’s potential habitability.

DEEPS Professor Jim Head spoke with Space.com about the MEPAG Tiger Team report and their insights into NASA's moon-to-Mars strategy. "NASA is currently updating the objectives for the Moon-to-Mars initiative with the strategy of 'architect from the right/execute from the left,'" Head said.

In a new paper published in the journal of Science China Earth Sciences, DEEPS Professor James Head and colleagues used the phases of volcanic activity and deposits formed by meteorite impacts to propose a new time scale for the Moon's geologic history.

Brown's Multimedia Lab encourages students to create projects using film negatives from NASA Lunar Orbiter 4 Mission. The scans were originally part of the Brown/NASA Northeast Planetary Data Center and were donated to the Creative Reuse Center in June 2023 after a DEEPS consolidation effort. “We were surprised and delighted to see some of the scans turn up back at Brown,” Jackson wrote to the Brown Daily Herald.

NASA-funded researchers have been granted permission to apply to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) for access to portions of samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission. This is an exciting and welcome development, DEEPS Professor James Head told SpaceNews. “The Solar System is a big place, and planetary science can benefit tremendously from complementary, non-duplicative exploration destinations, and the sharing of samples and other results.”

The next wave of lunar explorers is headed to terrain that promises to be both stunning and challenging. DEEPS Professor James Head offered his comment, saying "I don’t think we know yet how the trafficability is going to affect how the astronauts are going to be able to walk and drive."

The Odyssey orbiter captured clouds and dust in the Red Planet’s skies, along with one of its two tiny moons. Laura Kerber '11, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, explains in a video how and why the spacecraft captured a view of the Red Planet similar to the International Space Station’s view of Earth.

The Brown Daily Herald spoke with DEEPS researchers and faculty about the recent study using models atmospheric modeling to show that Venus once had plate tectonics similar to Earth.

Assistant Professor James W. Dottin III is featured on a recent episode of PBS's science documentary series, NOVA. In the episode, "Ancient Earth: Birth of the Sky," scientists explore the creation of Earth's atmosphere and our familiar blue sky.

Members of Professor Yongsong Huang's Lab gathered to watch and celebrate the historic return of NASA's Bennu sampling capsule arrival in Utah.

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is returning to Earth carrying an estimated 250 grams (8.8 ounces) of material gathered from the surface of an asteroid. Takahiro Hiroi, DEEPS Senior Research Scientist and Spectroscopy Specialist, shared his optimism for the mission, saying, “Returned samples can additionally [preserve] microscopic, including nanophase, materials that can be evidence of space weathering or shock events, most elements and isotopes, grain density, [and] material strength.”

University of Central Florida planetary scientist and DEEPS alumna Kerri Donaldson Hanna is counting the days until NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission launches from Cape Canaveral and begins its journey to search for water on the moon.

Professors Kim Cobb and Alberto Saal have been elected as American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Fellows. They join 53 other individuals in the 2023 Class of Fellows. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space sciences association, annually recognizes a select number of individuals for its highest honors. Since 1962, the AGU Union Fellows Committee has selected less than 0.1% of members as new Fellows.

In a recent episode of The Agenda, Juliet Mann speaks to James Head, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, who helped select landing sites for the Apollo moon program, and Xu Yansong, Director-General of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Program.

F. Scott Anderson ‘90 of the Southwest Research Institute is the Principle Investigator on the mission Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer (DIMPLE), which will investigate the Ina Irregular Mare Patch, discovered in 1971 by Apollo 15 orbital images. "Our mission," said Professor Jim Head, "is designed to land, explore, and date in situ, the enigmatic Ina D-shaped pit crater, a volcanic features whose impact crater-count age is interpreted to be an astoundingly young ~33 million years, but whose geological context suggests could be over 3 billion years."

Get ready for a journey across the rivers of our Solar System in this week's Planetary Radio. Sam Birch, an assistant professor at Brown University, explores what we know about the alluvial rivers of Earth, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan.

In late June, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson traveled to the Ocean State for a firsthand look at the research and technology that Rhode Island colleges, universities and businesses are producing to support the space agency’s mission.

Over the 14 years since its launch, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has produced images and data proven that have transformed our understanding of Earth's celestial neighbor. Professor and noted lunar researcher Carle Pieters spoke with Space.com about the importance of future orbital observations of the moon.

Laura Lark and her team discover potential carbon enrichment in impact basins on Mercury's surface, shedding light on volatile-driven processes and the formation of dark low-reflectance material.

Meteoroid impacts on Mars' surface reveal intriguing connections between atmospheric density, elevation, and the formation of crater clusters, as hypothesized by Assistant Professor Ingrid Daubar

Assistant Professor Gerrit Budde received a Salomon award for his work establishing new procedures for complete sample digestion of meteorite samples utilizing laser-assisted melting and for combined isotope analyses of oxygen and ‘heavy’ elements. Professor Timothy Herbert received a Salomon award for his project developing proof of concept data directly relevant to the long-term stability of the Antarctic ice cap to be submitted to the NSF Marine Geology and Geophysics program.