National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration 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.
$28 MILLION
Research Supported by NASA in FY22
375
Active Projects Supported by NASA
170
Faculty, Postdocs and Grad Students Supported Annually by NASA
Parker Solar Probe data bolsters theories in long-running solar riddle
Data collected by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe bolsters theories previously proposed by U-M researchers about one of the sun’s greatest mysteries – why its outer atmosphere is hotter than its fiery surface. And now that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has entered this zone of heating, U-M researchers can visualize how heating happens in the corona, further expanding our understanding of space weather.
Colossal black holes locked in dance at heart of galaxy
A team of researchers, using data collected at the former U-M Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Peach Mountain Observatory, discovered a pair of supermassive black holes caught in the act of merging 13 billion light-years away. The two massive bodies are each hundreds of millions of times the mass of our sun and span a distance roughly fifty times the size of our own solar system.
Studying Earth’s defenses against solar storms
U-M researchers will play a central role in NASA’s upcoming Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission – a first-of-its-kind look at a protective outer layer of Earth’s atmosphere and how it interacts with solar weather. NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation Mission includes three scientific investigations – two of which involve U-M researchers – that will help us predict impacts from solar activity such as coronal mass ejections, solar wind and flares.