NASA
NASA partners with researchers across U-M to discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity, while supporting innovation and technology development to advance our space exploration capabilities.
$31 MILLION
Research Supported by NASA in FY24
392
Active Projects Supported by NASA
In six new rogue worlds, Webb Telescope finds more star birth clues
An international collaboration that included the University of Michigan has spotted six likely rogue worlds—objects with planetlike masses but untethered from any star’s gravity—using the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. The discovery includes the lightest rogue planet candidate ever identified with a dusty disk around it.
Astronomers find surprising ice world in the habitable zone with JWST data
A team that includes a University of Michigan astronomer has identified a temperate exoplanet as a promising super-Earth ice or water world. The planet, located about 48 light-years away in the constellation Cetus, emerges as one of the most promising habitable zone exoplanet candidates known, potentially harboring an atmosphere and even a liquid water ocean.
U-M, XMM-Newton spot a black hole giving ‘fierce feedback’
Observations led by the University of Michigan using the European Space Agency’s x-ray telescope XMM-Newton have caught a black hole in the act of “flipping over the table” during an otherwise civilized meal. This act prevents the galaxy surrounding the black hole from forming new stars, giving us insight into how black holes and galaxies co-evolve
