UCF in the News

As the space around Earth becomes increasingly cluttered with human-made junk, scientists are ramping up their efforts to safeguard satellites in real time. The latest in that effort are new algorithms being developed at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to automatically monitor and protect spacecraft from bumping into satellites and asteroids in cislunar space — the realm between Earth and the moon, which is under the gravitational influence of both celestial bodies. Because cislunar space is so vast, tracking and predicting the orbits of satellites, spent rocket stages and asteroids is a challenging task, scientists say. The existing infrastructure "is not equipped to provide the needed coverage in cislunar space," Tarek Elgohary, an associate professor of aerospace engineering, said in a UCF statement. "There is a need for fast and accurate solutions to quantify uncertainties to improve predictions and provide [space domain awareness] information in the absence of continuous coverage." The new algorithms are being designed to autonomously track objects and predict collisions in low Earth orbit (LEO), which is expected to become increasingly crowded in the coming decade. Elgohary said the same tools, whose development is largely being funded by the Virginia-based Air Force Office of Scientific Research, could also be used to monitor ships at sea, predict their paths and "spot suspicious behavior in real time."

You’ve read the headlines:“Explosive Atlantic hurricane season predicted for 2024.”“Hurricane forecasts for 2024 predicts the highest number of storms ever.”And, “Long-range forecasts suggest 2024 hurricane season from hell.”What are these headlines really doing? Scaring you, your family, your friends. Don’t be scared, just be prepared is our motto at Spectrum News 13, and it’s a great way to prepare for any storm that may impact us. Dr. Deborah Beidel, a Professor of Psychology and the Executive Director of UCF Restores, has some advice on how to mentally prepare when handling the extreme hype of the upcoming season. “What we find is that when people are worrying about uncertainty, because that’s what this is, the best thing to do is try and plan and prepare,” Beidel says. “I think the best thing to do to parse through the information is to remember that although all these storms might happen, the probability of any one storm hitting us directly is always pretty low. It’s not impossible, but it’s low. So, we shouldn’t think that we are going to be hit by 21 storms or whatever it may be.”

A new theory of how rockets erode moon soil makes a startling prediction: powered lunar landings may fling around four to 10 times more material than previously thought. The work suggests that without sufficient precautions, rocket-lofted lunar dust would pose a serious sandblasting hazard to cargo and crew on the moon. The physicist behind the new calculations, Phil Metzger, is one of the world’s leading experts on how rocket plumes interact with planetary surfaces. Now that his research has been published in two studies in the journal Icarus, he is calling for more global cooperation on the problem as space agencies plan out long-term lunar infrastructure—including human outposts. “The amount of damage [that lunar dust] might cause to a spacecraft could be an order of magnitude worse than we believed,” says Metzger, director of the University of Central Florida’s Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education.

An asteroid that tore through the atmosphere over Germany in January was spinning faster than any other near-Earth object ever recorded, new research suggests. The space rock, dubbed 2024 BX1, turned into a fireball and exploded over Berlin in the early hours of Jan. 21. Although small asteroids on collision courses with Earth are typically detected only when they crash into the atmosphere, scientists spotted this one roughly three hours before impact. That's not the only way 2024 BX1 was unusual, according to a paper published to the preprint database arXiv on April 5. Researchers think the asteroid, which was traveling 31,000 mph (50,000 km/h), was rotating once every 2.6 seconds — the fastest spin ever seen for an asteroid. Previously, the record for the fastest-spinning asteroid belonged to a flying rock called 2020 HS7, which showed a rotation period of 2.99 seconds. That asteroid measured between 13 and 24 feet (4 to 8 meters) in diameter, which is slightly bigger than 2024 BX1 and may explain why the latter spun faster. Asteroids spin for several reasons, such as being propelled back into space after a collision. Because they are more compact, smaller asteroids tend to spin faster than larger ones. "They have internal strength, so they can rotate faster," lead author Maxime Devogèle, a physicist at the University of Central Florida who works with the European Space Agency, told New Scientist. Devogèle and his colleagues studied the rotational speeds of three asteroids, including 2024 BX1, using images they took as the objects approached Earth. The other two asteroids, 2023 CX1 and 2024 EF, were described based on close calls with our planet recorded on Feb. 13, 2023, and March 4, 2024, respectively.

John Madden‘s presence can be felt in almost every corner of the Electronic Arts building in Orlando’s Creative Village. From various posters papering the walls to a monolithic mural of the late NFL coach and legendary broadcaster in the central stairwell, Madden is as much a part of the 175,940-square-foot facility that houses EA Sports as it is in the DNA of his namesake video game, Madden NFL. While most gamers associate Madden NFL with EA SPORTS after it first debuted in 1996, it’s not the only video game the company produces. Major titles such as NBA Live, EA SPORTS PGA Tour, Madden NFL Mobile and NBA Live Mobile also are created and produced in Central Florida. However, one of the most anticipated returns to the market is that of the EA SPORTS College Football video game franchise. The latest game, College Football 25, is expected to debut this summer. The game means so much more for some of the 1,000 personnel at the EA Orlando studios. Many are UCF graduates of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. Some people would be surprised by the school’s partnership with the athletic department as a living lab for the game. It’s about a 10-minute walk from the EA SPORTS offices in downtown Orlando to UCF’s Communication and Media building that houses the FIEA program. There, you can find the next generation of workers in the interactive entertainment industry.

Partly because of semiconductors, electronic devices and systems become more advanced and sophisticated every day. That's why for decades researchers have studied ways to improve semiconductor compounds to influence how they carry electrical current. One approach is to use isotopes to change the physical, chemical and technological properties of materials. ORNL scientist Kai Xiao and the team, working with theorists Volodymyr Turkowski and Talat Rahman at the University of Central Florida, knew that the phonons, or crystal vibrations, must be scattering the excitons, or optical excitations, in unexpected ways in the confined dimensions of these ultrathin crystals. They discovered how this scattering shifts the optical bandgap to the red end of the light spectrum for heavier isotopes. "Optical bandgap" refers to the minimum amount of energy needed to make a material absorb or emit light. By adjusting the bandgap, researchers can make semiconductors absorb or emit different colors of light, and such tunability is essential for designing new devices.

Nearly 400 Central Florida teen girls gathered at UCF Thursday for a tech summit meant to encourage them to pursue STEM careers.

Just over half (55 percent) of college students receive advising on courses and course sequences and less than that (52 percent) have been advised on degree progress, according to a 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse. Advising plays a key role in helping students persist and graduate—and a lack of quality advising can increase time to degree, wasted credits and frustrated learners. In 2023, the University of Central Florida modified its advising and coaching model into a singular role, centralizing staff under one umbrella and modifying job descriptions for staff. Starting this fall, all students will be assigned an academic success coach who will provide assistance with course registration and degree mapping and also assist with personal challenges students face in their academics. he new initiative is designed to improve retention and graduation rates across the college as well as raise morale and energy among the advising team.