Science
$26 million to propel space research at McGill University and Université de Montréal to the outer limits
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The McGill Space Institute (MSI) and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) at Université de Montréal are at the forefront of the exhilarating pace of space research, helping to advance our knowledge of extrasolar planets, fast radio bursts, the dark universe, and other extraterrestrial mysteries. Now their stellar work and efforts to recruit top students and researchers are getting a huge boost thanks to extraordinary gifts to McGill University and the Université de Montréal from the Trottier Family Foundation.
The visionary gifts, which total $26 million, coincide with an exciting age of discovery in astrophysics, thanks in part to the development of powerful new telescopes – such as the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – that enable researchers to explore deep into our solar system and beyond. In addition to advancing our understanding of the universe, space research has contributed to the development of transformative technologies that have greatly benefitted society, including communication satellites, GPS, high-performance cameras, and high-speed wireless internet.
Trottier Space Institute at McGill University
The McGill Space Institute will receive $16 million, of which half will go towards the construction of an annex to the Institute’s current building on University Street. The other portion of the gift will be used to fund graduate and postdoctoral fellowships, as well as to expand on existing programmatic and research support. The ground-breaking work by the Space Institute’s researchers includes major discoveries in the area of neutron stars and fast radio bursts by Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute Victoria Kaspi, an award-winning astrophysicist who holds the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology at McGill.
In recognition of this historic gift, the McGill Space Institute will be renamed the Trottier Space Institute at McGill.
Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at Université de Montréal
For its part, Université de Montréal’s Institute for Research on Exoplanets will receive $10 million to ensure the sustainability of its activities. Leaders in exoplanet research, iREx scientists have made discoveries that profoundly changed what we know about worlds beyond our solar system. Led by astrophysicist René Doyon, a Professor of Physics and the Canadian Principal Investigator of the James Webb mission, iREx has developed major scientific instruments, including an infrared camera that has captured remarkable and previously unseen images of space. In addition, iREx devotes great effort to sharing knowledge with the general public. The Trottier Family Foundation’s major gift will allow iREx’s scientific team to continue its research to discover life outside the solar system. In recognition of this exceptional donation and the support of Lorne Trottier and the Trottier Family Foundation since its inception, iREx will be renamed the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets.
“These devoted researchers scanning our skies have already broadened our horizons in a big way,” said UdeM rector Daniel Jutras. “Probing the mysteries of the universe, they have helped us come to recognize the beauty and fragility of our planet. The unprecedented support for Montreal scientists offered by Mr. Trottier and the Trottier Family Foundation will also help preserve our ecosystems here on Earth. It’s a gift that will continue to enrich future generations.”
“We are very grateful to McGill alumnus Lorne Trottier and the Trottier Family Foundation, whose tremendous contributions to McGill and to its Faculties of Science and Engineering over many years have helped further our understanding of our world and our universe,” said McGill’s Interim Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Christopher Manfredi. “This most recent gift, spread out among two of our city’s great universities, will cement Montreal’s place as a leading hub of space research within Canada and the world.”
“The Trottier Family Foundation is pleased to support the world-class work of the Trottier Space Institute at McGill and the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal,” said Lorne Trottier, the co-founder of Matrox, an industry leader in computer graphics, imaging and video products. “Science has brought untold benefits to humanity,” added Trottier, who noted astronomy was the first science. “Copernicus, Galileo and Newton laid the groundwork for the scientific revolution that’s transformed lives in so many ways. Understanding more about the laws of the universe and its origins leads to discoveries and innovations that are beneficial – in addition to satisfying our deep curiosity.”
With a lifelong love of science and technology, Lorne Trottier earned bachelor and master’s degrees in Engineering at McGill and has received several honorary degrees, including from McGill and the Université de Montréal. His family foundation has supported exoplanet research at iREx at the Université de Montréal and provided support to many key institutions on the island of Montreal. The foundation has supported astronomy education for youth across Canada and funds various initiatives promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) throughout Canada.
The Trottier Family Foundation’s generosity has made an indelible mark on McGill, including the Lorne M. Trottier Building on campus that bears his name, the creation of institutes in the Faculties of Science and Engineering and support for popular public education initiatives.
The Trottier Space Institute has flourished since its creation in 2015 with support from the Trottier Family Foundation. The interdisciplinary centre brings together researchers in Astrophysics, Planetary Science, Atmospheric Sciences, Astrobiology and other space-related areas at McGill. McGill researchers have detected thousands of fast radio bursts and identified magnetars as one likely origin of this mysterious phenomenon, helped make the first image of a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope, and developed a microbial life detection system for space missions.
Since its inception in 2014, UdeM’s Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets successfully recruited more than 60 of the world’s most renowned researchers in a variety of domains of expertise related to the search for and understanding of alien worlds beyond our solar system. Over the years, the members of iREx have made major advances in astrophysical research, including, in 2019, the first detection of water on a planet, K2-18 b, in the habitable zone of the star it orbits, and in 2022, the discovery of a candidate “ocean planet,” TOI-1452 b, that made headlines around the world. Researchers from iREx are also leaders in the conception and development of cutting-edge astronomical instruments that have been sent to world-class telescopes all over the globe and in space.
About McGill University
Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada’s top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. It is a world-renowned institution of higher learning with research activities spanning three campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 39,000 students, including more than 10,400 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,000 international students making up 30% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 20% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.
About Université de Montréal
Deeply rooted in Montreal and dedicated to its international mission, Université de Montréal is a leading research university worldwide and among the five best French-language universities. With its affiliated schools, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal, UdeM attracts over $500 million in research funding every year, making it one of Canada’s top university research hubs. UdeM has close to 70,000 students, 2,300 professors and researchers, and an active global network of 450,000 alumni.
SpaceX sent up the 30th launch from the Space Coast for the year on the evening of April 23, a mission that also featured the company’s 300th successful booster recovery.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites blasted off at 6:17 p.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40.
The first-stage booster set a milestone of the 300th time a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy booster made a successful recovery landing, and the 270th time SpaceX has reflown a booster.
This particular booster made its ninth trip to space, a resume that includes one human spaceflight, Crew-6. It made its latest recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.
The company’s first successful booster recovery came in December 2015, and it has not had a failed booster landing since February 2021.
The current record holder for flights flew 11 days ago making its 20th trip off the launch pad.
SpaceX has been responsible for all but two of the launches this year from either Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral with United Launch Alliance having launched the other two.
SpaceX could knock out more launches before the end of the month, putting the Space Coast on pace to hit more than 90 by the end of the year, but the rate of launches by SpaceX is also set to pick up for the remainder of the year with some turnaround times at the Cape’s SLC-40 coming in less than three days.
That could amp up frequency so the Space Coast could surpass 100 launches before the end of the year, with the majority coming from SpaceX. It hosted 72 launches in 2023.
More launches from ULA are on tap as well, though, including the May 6 launch atop an Atlas V rocket of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner with a pair of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
ULA is also preparing for the second launch ever of its new Vulcan Centaur rocket, which recently received its second Blue Origin BE-4 engine and is just waiting on the payload, Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, to make its way to the Space Coast.
Blue Origin has its own rocket it wants to launch this year as well, with New Glenn making its debut as early as September, according to SLD 45’s range manifest.
2024 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The common loon, that icon of northern wilderness, is under threat from climate change due to declining water clarity. Published earlier this month in the journal Ecology, a study conducted by biologists from Chapman University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the U.S. has demonstrated the first clear evidence of an effect of climate change on this species whose distinct call is so tied to the soundscape of Canada’s lakes and wetlands.
Through the course of their research, the scientists found that July rainfall results in reduced July water clarify in loon territories in Northern Wisconsin. In turn, this makes it difficult for adult loons to find and capture their prey — mainly small fish — underwater, meaning they are unable to meet their chicks’ metabolic needs. Undernourished, the chicks face higher mortality rates. The consistent foraging techniques used by loons across their range means this impact is likely echoed wherever they are found — from Alaska to Canada to Iceland.
The researchers used Landsat imagery to find that there has been a 25-year consistent decline in water clarity, and during this period, body weights of adult loon and chicks alike have also declined. With July being the month of most rapid growth in young loons, the study also pinpointed water clarity in July as being the greatest predictor of loon body weight.
One explanation for why heavier rainfall leads to reduced water clarity is the rain might carry dissolved organic matter into lakes from adjacent streams and shoreline areas. Lawn fertilizers, pet waste and septic system leaks may also be to blame.
The researchers, led by Chapman University professor Walter Piper, hope to use these insights to further conservation efforts for this bird Piper describes as both “so beloved and so poorly understood.”
Return of the king
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The artwork and publicity materials showcasing a giant salmon that lived five million years ago were ready to go to promote a new exhibit, when the discovery of two fossilized skulls immediately changed what researchers knew about the fish.
Initial fossil discoveries of the 2.7-metre-long salmon in Oregon in the 1970s were incomplete and had led researchers to mistakenly suggest the fish had fang-like teeth.
It was dubbed the “sabre-toothed salmon” and became a kind of mascot for the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon, says researcher Edward Davis.
But then came discovery of two skulls in 2014.
Davis, a member of the team that found the skulls, says it wasn’t until they got back to the lab that he realized the significance of the discovery that has led to the renaming of the fish in a new, peer-reviewed study.
“There were these two skulls staring at me with sideways teeth,” says Davis, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences at the university.
In that position, the tusk-like teeth could not have been used for biting, he says.
“That was definitely a surprising moment,” says Davis, who serves as director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the university’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
“I realized that all of the artwork and all of the publicity materials and bumper stickers and buttons and T-shirts we had just made two months prior, for the new exhibit, were all out of date,” he says with a laugh.
Davis is co-author of the new study in the journal PLOS One, which renames the giant fish the “spike-toothed salmon.”
It says the salmon used the tusk-like spikes for building nests to spawn, and as defence mechanisms against predators and other salmon.
The salmon lived about five million years ago at a time when Earth was transitioning from warmer to relatively cooler conditions, Davis says.
It’s hard to know exactly why the relatives of today’s sockeye went extinct, but Davis says the cooler conditions would have affected the productivity of the Pacific Ocean and the amount of rain feeding rivers that served as their spawning areas.
Another co-author, Brian Sidlauskas, says a fish the size of the spike-toothed salmon must have been targeted by predators such as killer whales or sharks.
“I like to think … it’s almost like a sledgehammer, these salmon swinging their head back and forth in order to fend off things that might want to feast on them,” he says.
Sidlauskas says analysis by the lead author of the paper, Kerin Claeson, found both male and female salmon had the “multi-functional” spike-tooth feature.
“That’s part of our reason for hypothesizing that this tooth is multi-functional … It could easily be for digging out nests,” he says.
“Think about how big the (nest) would have to be for an animal of this size, and then carving it out in what’s probably pretty shallow water; and so having an extra digging tool attached to your head could be really useful.”
Sidlauskas says the giant salmon help researchers understand the boundaries of what’s possible with the evolution of salmon, but they also capture the human imagination and a sense of wonder about what’s possible on Earth.
“I think it helps us value a little more what we do still have, or I hope that it does. That animal is no longer with us, but it is a product of the same biosphere that sustains us.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2024.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
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