Like many kids, Shaan Patel spent nights staring at the sky in awe, wondering what existed beyond the stars. That curiosity has never faded.

Now, he’s turning it into a career, earning his Ph.D. in physics from The University of Texas at Arlington. Patel will walk across the graduation stage Friday morning at Globe Life Field, a defining moment for an out-of-state student who has become a standout example of what’s possible at UT Arlington.

Much remains to be known about the chemical composition of small asteroids. Their potential to harbour valuable metals, materials from the early solar system, and the possibility of obtaining a geochemical record of their parent bodies makes them promising candidates for future use of space resources. A team led by the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) has analyzed samples of C-type asteroids, carbon-rich minor bodies of the Solar System, progenitors of the carbonaceous chondrites. Their findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, support the idea that these asteroids can serve as crucial material sources and identify their parent bodies, as well as for planning future missions and developing new technologies for resource exploitation.

University of Arizona astronomers discover a galaxy with a dual personality – appearing ordinary in visible light while appearing to accrete material at an extraordinary rate when observed in the infrared. Captured as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang, the galaxy revealed an outsized black hole that calls into question prevailing theories about galaxies and their host galaxies growing together.