Western University’s new Institute for Earth and Space Exploration (Western Space) works towards two long-term objectives: Launching Western into Space and Bringing Space Down to Earth. At a special event on Monday, October 7, faculty, staff and students leading...
Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration
Western’s first steps in getting Canada to the Moon
In February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada is joining the international effort to explore the Moon with robots and, eventually, humans. In order to prepare for these future missions, a team of Western University faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate...
Apollo 11 and Canada ‘re-launch’ to the Moon this Saturday at Western University
Fifty years ago today, Apollo 11 launched on a mission to the Moon. Five days later, on July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface – a first for humankind. In celebration of these remarkable highlights of human achievement, Western...
Bring your personal ‘space oddities’ to Western’s Asteroid Day event
Are you desperate to find out, once and for all, if the rock your grandfather found when he was plowing the family farm back in the 1960s actually fell from the heavens? Or what about the weird object you found on the beach in Port Stanley that’s kind of magnetic and...
Nearly one year later, Western students recover prized project from space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzlr3CszzGM One year ago today, a team of Western University graduate students launched a high-altitude balloon (HAB) 20 km into space with the lofty goal of studying the Earth’s stratosphere to get a better sense of what microbial life...
Western welcomes CSA astronaut Dave Williams for Space Day
This week, astronaut David Saint-Jacques became the fourth Canadian to complete a spacewalk. Today, scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration presented the first-ever image of a black hole to a global audience. Space, literally and figuratively, is all...
Western’s CPSX supports new space mission led by CSA astronaut David Saint-Jacques
While in space, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut David Saint-Jacques is using his vantage point from aboard the International Space Station to explore Earth. Saint-Jacques is observing our planet to better understand its geological, environmental and ecological...
Western University-led team selected by Canadian Space Agency to study Mars minerals
Western University-led team selected by Canadian Space Agency to study Mars minerals “Planetary Instrument Concept Study” to develop a “Miniaturized In-situ X-Ray Diffractometer for Mineralogical Characterization of Planetary Surfaces (ISXRD)” which will focus on Mars...
Western planetary scientists assist in capturing first full-colour image of NASA InSight using HiRISE space camera
Houston, there is no problem here. Eric Pilles assisted in capturing – for the first-time ever – extraordinary and highly significant scientific images of the NASA InSight robotic lander using HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the camera currently...
Boy meets world: Life-long space buff and Western graduate student discovers exoplanet
Ever since Chris Fox was a young boy, he wanted to visit alien planets. With no immediate plans for such a voyage, the Western University graduate student has done the next best thing. He’s gone and found one. Teamed with Paul Wiegert, Graduate Program Director at...
Western hosts SPACE OUT! as part of nation-wide Science Literacy Week celebration
Science Literacy Week is a nation-wide effort to showcase the excellence and diversity of science outreach institutions around the country. This year’s theme is Space, in large part, to celebrate Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques’s mission to the International...
Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration wins PromoScience Award for Space Matters
Although many people are fascinated by space, most Canadians are relatively unaware of how space technologies pervade their everyday life. From GPS and satellite communications to weather forecasting and monitoring the health of crops or the extent of sea ice, the...