By Timothy R. Olsen

The only way this photo could more aptly highlight the content of this magazine would be if we subbed out Maverik Stadium for Old Main. 

Originally discovered on March 27, 2020, Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE — or simply Comet NEOWISE for short — was named after the telescope that first spotted it: NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

That spacecraft, and its successful missions, are directly tied to Utah State. The university’s Space Dynamics Laboratory designed, built, tested, and calibrated — amongst other things — the craft’s infrared systems. Our cover story for this issue, The Asteroid Hunter, details those contributions and SDL’s significant role in near-Earth object detection and characterization.

This photo, captured in July 2020, just a few months after the comet’s discovery, by USU’s assistant athletics director for video operations, Bill Garren — who was recently named the Mountain West Video Coordinator of the Year by the Collegiate Sports Video Association — is a visible representation of The Heavens Above and the Sagebrush Below theme of this issue.

Comet NEOWISE, which measured roughly 3 miles in diameter and passed by at a harmless distance of 64 million miles, is one of more than 44,000 previously unknown objects the NEOWISE (and WISE) missions discovered. It’s not set to return for another 6,800 years or so.

Formed from the frozen remnants of our solar system’s birth some 4.6 billion years ago, this comet was a brilliant example of cosmic history on display and our university’s role in chronicling and understanding that history. As comets near the sun, their icy cores begin to vaporize, creating the glowing tail and surrounding halo visible in the image — a phenomenon made possible by sunlight reflecting off the comet’s dust and gas.