Skarleth Motino, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in astrophysics at Catholic University, boarded NASA’s specially designed Boeing 747SP called the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or, SOFIA, in September. This “airborne observatory” contains an infrared telescope that Montino and her Catholic University research team are using to take images of nearby galaxies. She spent a total of 19 hours on SOFIA over two flights.

Learn more about Motino’s research and her experience in the Department of Physics