Some exciting news appeared in the Eagle this week: A group of Slippery Rock University students will be contributing to the cutting edge of technology after receiving a grant that will enable them to collaborate with NASA.

The physics and engineering students were given a $25,000 grant to supply NASA with a portable cryogenic atomic force microscope. The money will allow the students to build the equipment from scratch.

This is a great honor and quite the learning experience for those involved.

Sagar Bhandari, an assistant professor of physics and engineering at SRU who is leading the group of seven undergraduate students in building the microscope, said the project will incorporate nearly every aspect of engineering.

The microscope built by the students must be small enough to fit inside a rocket and function in temperatures as low as minus 340 degrees Fahrenheit. Ultimately, the microscope would be utilized when NASA sends a craft to Mars to study its soil.

While the project sounds like a great challenge, we have faith that the students — most of whom are in physics or engineering programs — will succeed.

Ashton Bloom, a physics and engineering major whose duty on the project will involve programming, said an initiative of this type is one of the reasons why he was interested in the field of physics.

“To see it go to another planet would actually be pretty amazing,” he said of the microscope that he and his teammates are tasked with creating.

Butler County has long been at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation, from the creation of the Jeep in the county in the 1940s after Bantam won a contract from the U.S. Army to Apple’s recent $410 million award to Saxonburg’s II-VI to produce future iPhone components.

The SRU students involved in the NASA project will be the latest to add to that history of innovation in the county.

We congratulate them and Slippery Rock University for obtaining the grant, and we’re excited to see the fruits of their labor.

The expression, “reaching for the stars,” is a little overused — but in the case of these students, it’s appropriate.

— NCD