West Virginia University physicists are helping NASA measure light from distant stars and involving local high school science teachers in the process.
Mikel Holcomb, associate professor in the Eberly College Department of Physics and Astronomy, said she expects her team's research into photon detector technologies to influence NASA missions, including the possible 2030 launch of the far-IR Probe as well as the development of technology for the Great Observatories — four observatories, floating in space, that conduct astronomical studies over visible, gamma-ray, X-ray and infrared wavelengths.
Holcomb’s colleagues, physics faculty members Alan Bristow, Matthew Johnson and Aldo Romero, are also closely involved in the research, which focuses on the introduction of impurities into the material of a superconductor.
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