News
Lucy Encounters Asteroid DonaldJohanson
On April 20, the SwRI-led Lucy mission got a close-up of the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson en route to the never-before-visited Trojan asteroids, located in two swarms leading and trailing Jupiter along its orbit. “Lucy came within about 600 miles of this...
SwRI-led team discovers methane gas on Makemake
September 9, 2025 — A Southwest Research Institute-led team has reported the first detection of gas on the distant dwarf planet Makemake, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This discovery makes Makemake only the second trans-Neptunian object, after Pluto,...
SwRI-led Webb Telescope survey discovers new moon orbiting Uranus
August 19, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute led a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) survey, discovering a previously unknown tiny moon orbiting Uranus. A team led by SwRI’s Dr. Maryame El Moutamid discovered the small object in a series of images taken on Feb. 2,...
SwRI-led work confirms decades-old theoretical models about solar reconnection
August 18, 2025 — New research led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has confirmed decades-old theoretical models about magnetic reconnection, the process that releases stored magnetic energy to drive solar flares, coronal mass ejections and other space weather...
NASA’s PUNCH Mission Reaches Science Orbit, Releases Data
August 15, 2025 — All four spacecraft of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission have successfully maneuvered into their final science orbits as of Aug 7. Launched into Earth orbit on March 11, PUNCH’s four suitcase-sized spacecraft are...
SwRI scientist leads science team contributions to a new NASA heliophysics AI foundation model
August 26, 2025 — NASA has launched Surya, its new heliophysics artificial intelligence foundation model to empower solar scientists with tools to enhance research and space weather forecasting. Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo led a team of...
First Institute Instrument Lands on Moon, Probes Subsurface
“For more than 50 years, scientists have used magnetotellurics on Earth for a wide variety of purposes, including to find oil, water, geothermal and mineral resources as well as to understand geologic processes such as the growth of continents,” said Dr. Robert Grimm,...
Unraveling Mysteries about Saturn’s Moon Titan
SwRI scientists are studying Saturn’s moon Titan to assess its tidal dissipation rate, the energy lost as it orbits the ringed planet with its massive gravitational force, as well as how it maintains its unique nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Titan is the second largest...
Next-Gen Coronagraphs
SwRI has won a $60 million contract to build three coronagraphs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). SwRI’s novel Space Weather Solar Coronagraph (SwSCOR) is NOAA’s next-generation instrument to provide early detection and characterization...
PUNCH Makes the Invisible Visible
Every second, the Sun hurls over 300,000 tons of material in every direction at half a million miles per hour. This mixture of ionized atoms and free electrons becomes the solar wind. It permeates the solar system, washing over the planets and defining the...