Â鶹ÒùÔº

Two NASA and one European spacecraft, including NASA’s MAVEN mission led by the University of Colorado Boulder, have gathered new information about the basic properties of a wayward comet that buzzed by Mars Oct. 19, directly detecting its effects on the Martian atmosphere.

A new study led by the University of California, Berkeley and involving the University of Colorado Boulder indicates the current response to wildfires around the world—aggressively fighting them—is not making society less vulnerable to such events.

The University of Colorado Boulder was ranked second in the world in geosciences this week by U.S. News & World Report. CU-Boulder trailed only the California Institute of Technology. Rounding out the top five are the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Harvard University and the University of Washington. U.S. News & World Report ranked the top 100 universities in geosciences in 2014 based primarily on their research and reputation.

The type of sound processing that modern hearings aids provide to make speech more understandable for wearers may also make music enjoyment more difficult, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Former NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless will present University of Colorado Boulder senior Jeni Sorli with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation during a free public campus event on Thursday, Oct. 30.

Oil and natural gas production fields can emit large amounts of air pollutants that affect climate and air quality—but tackling the issue has been difficult because little is known about what aspects of complex production operations leak what kinds of pollutants, and how much. Now a study led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics sheds light on just that, pinpointing sources of airborne pollutants.

Longtime Boulder resident Paul N. Eklund has made a transformative gift to the opera program at the College of Music at the University of Colorado Boulder that, combined with additional university commitments, establishes a $2 million endowment for the program, to be renamed the Eklund Family Opera Program in honor of the gift.

NASA’s newest orbiter at Mars, MAVEN, took precautions to avoid harm from a dust-spewing comet that flew near Mars yesterday and is studying the flyby’s effects on the Red Planet’s atmosphere, according to University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator on the mission.

Not everybody or everything makes it to 100, but the University of Colorado Boulder Homecoming is about to reach that centennial mark. On Nov. 7, 1914, CU took on Utah to win 33-0 in the first Homecoming featuring an intercollegiate matchup. This year, from Oct. 22 to 25, CU-Boulder will host hundreds of guests at dozens of major events. In addition to the traditional football game and parade, the celebration will include a concert, an alumni lecture series, affinity reunions and college and school gatherings.

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars and produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, the mission’s principal investigator.