Robert McCoy, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, was driving to the movie theater in Fairbanks on a Saturday in mid-February when his cellphone showed an incoming call. It was from someone with the Department of Defense’s Alaskan Command, a person he knows well. The caller had a request: Could the Geophysical Institute […]
Earth has earthquakes, Venus has venusquakes. Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, working with NASA, are helping create a Venusian seismometer that can operate long enough in that planet’s extremes to provide insight into its seismicity. It’s a major challenge. Venus has surface temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt […]
The Federal Aviation Administration has granted a regulatory waiver to the University of Alaska Fairbanks unmanned aircraft systems test site. The agency’s decision supports aircraft manufacturers and operators in proving the safety of their drones so they can be certified for flight in the national airspace system. The Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration, […]
Rod Boyce of Two Rivers, Alaska, reports that he has noticed — at a time when the outside air’s temperature has not been above freezing since October — three butterflies living in his heated garage. Though we in middle Alaska will be thinking a lot about insects in a few months, mosquitoes and their kin […]