Below you will find a list of current Lowell Center for Space Science & Technology (LoCSST) news and announcements. If you are looking for past ones, please visit our Past News and Announcements page.

2025 News and Announcements

2024 News and Announcements

Three people pictured inside UMass Lowell Schueller Observatory during first open night of Fall 2024.

A young observer checks out the inside UMass Lowell Schueller Observatory during the first open night of Fall 2024.

  • October 2024: Many students including Engineering and Physics showed up for the first public open night of fall semester. Though it was cloudy, folks got tours of the observatory and heard about the work our student astronomers are doing. This very interested young man joined in and his mom said “My son had the best birthday ever and we all learned so much. I know he really appreciated all of you taking the time to treat his questions seriously and he left saying he was definitely going to be a scientist when he grows up. I know you are all so smart but you are even kinder!”
Charmi Patel pictured with the “Women in S.T.E.M.” panel at the Maine Space Conference.
Charmi Patel (Second from the right) with the “Women in S.T.E.M.” panel at the Maine Space Conference.
  • October 2024: Charmi Patel participated in the “Women in S.T.E.M.” panel at the Maine Space Conference organized on October 23, sharing insights and experiences in her field.
The Aurora Borealis pictured as it illuminates the skies over Lowell, MA.
Aurora Borealis pictured as it illuminated the skies over Lowell, MA
  • October 2024: The Aurora Borealis illuminated the skies over Lowell, Massachusetts, on October 10, casting a vibrant glow above the Joseph Ouellette Memorial Bridge.
  • October 2024: Graduate student Thad Potter presented "A Structural, Thermal, and Optical Model of a High-Altitude Balloon Observatory" at two locations: University of Memphis on October 23 and Rhodes College on October 31.
  • October 2024: The Schueller Observatory on Riverview Fields hosted a Spooky Public Observatory Night on Tuesday, October 29th at 6:30 PM. Attendees were encouraged to wear their Halloween costumes while they explored the night sky through telescopes. The event was open to all ages, and free parking was available at 900 Broadway St, Lowell.
  • October 2024: Professor Cohen gave an interview with WBUR on Why New England could see more of the Northern Lights — including this weekend.
  • September 2024: Congratulations to our Fall Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium awardees:
    • Thaddeus Potter
    • Michael Jones
    • Charmi Patel
    • Lukas Hanson
    • Aadith Arasu
    • Mitchell Bailey
    • Julie Sage
    • Adam Connolly
  • October 2024: Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti presented “A new nanosat format for education: Design details and Status report” (Symposium B4 - 31st IAA Symposium on Small Satellite Missions) at the 75th International Astronautical Congress Milan, Italy 14-18 October 2024.
  • September 2024: Prof. Chakrabarti presented the talk "A new technique designed to obtain ionospheric parameters from Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) " at the United Kingdom (UK) Space Weather and Space Environment Meeting in Exeter, UK.
Charmi Patel at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Long Range Imaging Radar, Haystack Auxiliary Radar sign.
Charmi Patel at MIT Haystack
  • July 2024: Grad student, Charmi Patel, participated in The NSF-funded 2024 Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) Summer School, which was held in person at Boston University between July 22-27, 2024. At the workshop, she learned to design and run an experiment using PFISR (Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar) during a geomagnetically active period and went on a tour of MIT Haystack.
Picture of Sayantan Bhattacharya on left and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige on right.
Sayantan Bhattacharya on left and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige on right
  • May 2024: Congratulations to our Physics PhD graduates Sayantan Bhattacharya and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige
Picture of physics PhD graduate Sunip Mukherjee
Physics PhD graduate Sunip Mukherjee
  • May 2024: Congratulations to our Physics PhD graduate Sunip Mukherjee
  • April 2024: UMass Lowell in the News: UMass Lowell Gets Lost in Space
  • April 2024: Let’s shoot for the stars like Robert Goddard: SpaceNews.com
  • April 2024: Timelapse of the Total Solar Eclipse of 2024, as observed from North Hero, Vermont.
Closeup of the total eclipse in April 2024.
Eclipse captured by Nick Sorabella.
  • April 2024: Physics graduate student and LoCSST researcher, Nick Sorabella, captured this great shot of the eclipse during his travels!
  • April 16, 2024: LoCSST hosted a very successful Massachusetts Space Week Kickoff event in conjunction with The Space Consortium with approximately 100 faculty, staff and students from UMass Lowell, state officials, Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology (MASTS) partners, the local public, and others attending. Stay tuned for photos!
  • April 2024 Student Research Symposium presentations:
    • Sayantan Bhattacharya presented "IC 10's X-ray Universe: Probing the Blue Supergiant X-ray Binary Population".
    • Charmi Patel presented "Preparation, Visualization, and inventory of Ultraviolet Airglow Intensities as Observed by LITES".
    • Mit Bailey presented "A Novel Controller for MEMS Deformable Mirrors Utilizing Actuator Capacitance".
    • Lukas Hanson presented "Using the Alfvèn Wave Solar Model to Study the Solar Wind of the Sun and Sun-like Stars".
  • April 2024: Sayantan Bhattacharya successfully defended his PhD dissertation on April 5 entitled “X-RAY BINARIES IN NEARBY DWARF GALAXY IC 10: NOT TO MENTION THE X-1"
  • April 2024: Prof. Silas Laycock talked with WCAP-AM radio talk-show morning host about the Solar Eclipse on Friday, April 5.
  • March 2024: Prof. Silas Laycock gave an interview about the eclipse to The Eagle-Tribune’s Monica Sager on Tuesday, April 2 at 10:30! Stay tuned for the article once available!
  • March 2024: Edwin Aguirre's article on the April 8 solar eclipse is now live in UML News: Here Are Some Tips on How to Safely Observe and Photograph the Eclipse
  • March 2024: Prof. Silas Laycock and others spoke at Spring 2024’s Kennedy College of Sciences Conversation Starter on “Scientific Literacy and Communication” on March 13 from 3-6 p.m. in the SAAB-ETIC, Perry Atrium.
  • March 2024: Sunip Mukherjee virtually attended “Meeting the Challenges of Limited Observations for the Global Modelling of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere System” on March 8.
  • February 2024: (Feb. 29, 2024) – Physics Associate Professor Silas Laycock explains the science and history behind leap days in this live segment, available nationally on this platform. FOX Weather Channel: The science behind leap years
  • February 2024: An article on Prof. Ofer Cohen’s paper was described on 2/21 in a Phys.org article: Possible atmospheric destruction of a potentially habitable exoplanet
  • February 2024: Congratulations to our 4 grad students- Charmi Patel, Mitchell Bailey, Thaddeus Potter, and Lukas Hanson-for receiving $3500 each for MASGC fellowships Spring24 semester!
  • January 2024: Prof. Ofer Cohen presented the talk “Three-dimensional, Time-dependent MHD Simulation of Disk-Magnetosphere-Stellar Wind Interaction in a T Tauri, Protoplanetary System” at American Astronomical Society (AAS) New Orleans.
nick and poster
Nicholas Sorabella presenting his poster.
  • January 2024: Nicholas Sorabella presented the poster "The SMILE Project: A User-friendly Suite to Search for and Model Self-lensing Binary Systems" at AAS New Orleans.
  • January 2024: Graduate student Sayantan Bhattacharya presented IC 10's X-ray Universe: Probing the Blue Supergiant X-ray Binary Population (Sayantan Bhattacharya, Silas G. T. Laycock, Dimitris M. Christodoulou) at the AAS meeting in New Orleans.
  • January 2024: Prof. Tim Cook presented NAIL: a Novel, Asynchronous, Integrating, Latching deformable mirror controller (Timothy Cook, Mitchell Bailey, Supriya Chakrabarti, Kuravi Hewawasam and Christopher Mendillo) at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in New Orleans.
Students enjoying the Halloween-themed event at Schueller Observatory “spooky viewing party”.
  • October, 27 2023: Students enjoying the Halloween-themed event at Schueller Observatory “spooky viewing party”

2023 News and Announcements

  • December, 13 2023: Physics Associate Professor Silas Laycock told reporters conditions Wednesday evening would provide the best view of a meteor shower this year. He explained Geminids would be visible to the left of the constellation Orion’s Belt.(WBUR: UMass Lowell expert advises stargazers of meteor shower)
  • December 2023: Supriya Chakrabarti did a “pulsar podcast” entitled “What Kind of Space Research Happens in Massachusetts” with the Museum of Science.
  • December 2023: Mitchell Bailey successfully completed his qualifier today for a PhD in Computer Engineering – way to go Mit!
  • December 2023: Prof. Cohen presented "The Possible Impact of a Close-in Exoplanet on Type-II Radio Burst Signature" at Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting.
  • November, 21 2023: Mit Bailey successfully presented his literature survey paper/Phd qualifier “Free space communication systems and methods in the near-earth and lunar regimes”
  • November, 11 2023:Congratulations to Lukas Hanson who successfully passed his MS Thesis Defense "Using the Space Weather Modeling Framework to Study the Solar Wind of the Sun and Sun-like Stars”.
  • November 10, 2023: Congratulations to Charmi Patel who successfully passed her MS Dissertation Proposal Defense in Physics on the title is "Airglow as seen by LITES".
  • November, 7 2023: Congratulations to Sunip Mukherjee for successfully defending his Ph.D. in Physics . The title is: Multi-Instrument, Multi-Location Observation and Modeling of the Upper Atmosphere-Ionosphere.
  • July 2023: Congratulations to Nicholas Sorabella and his advisor, Silas Laycock, on being awarded NASA’s FINESST research grant. Nick is developing a computational model for gravitational self-lensing.