UNH Today

YouMap, IMAP

When NASA launches its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission in 2024, it will carry an instrument designed and built by a team of UNH engineers and scientists.

Black Hole Discovery

A team of space scientists led by UNH Space Science Center research assistant professor Dacheng Lin discovered an elusive intermediate mass black hole when the researchers spied it (thanks to a trio of orbiting X ray telescopes) chowing down on a star that wandered into its gravitational eld. In June, Lin and his colleagues published a paper in Nature Astronomy that provides the strongest evidence to date that these middle-of-the-road black holes do exist.

Research on the Edge

In June, a state-of-the-art robot cut a ribbon to officially open UNH’s new John Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center on the edge of campus. The center introduces students to the technologies used in the nation’s $1.7 trillion manufacturing industry, particularly high-precision machining, light materials, flexible electronics and “Industry 4.0.”

Insights on a Changing Climate

UNH research left its mark on the monumental Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in November 2018 by 13 government agencies. Jennifer Jacobs, professor of civil and environmental engineering, led the chapter on transportation, which found that climate change will diminish the ability of our nation’s transportation infrastructure — the backbone of economic activity — to perform reliably, safely and efficiently.

Next in XPRIZE

More than 80 percent of our Earth’s seafloor is not mapped to high resolution; we have a clearer picture of the surface of Mars than of the ocean floor. A team of UNH alumni has created an ocean mapping system that could quickly change that. And along the way, they’ve become a top finisher for the $7 million Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a global competition challenging teams to advance deep-sea technologies for ocean floor exploration.

Skin Secrets

We’re one step closer to clothing and cosmetics that can change color and pattern in response to their surroundings, thanks in part to new research from Feixia Chu and Matthew MacManes.