Department of Astronomy

Why did the radio telescope go up the mountain? To look out into space, of course. A German-made DSA-2000 radio telescope, weighing in at 5,000 pounds with a dish 5 meters in diameter, journeyed to the University of Virginia’s Grounds on March 31 following three weeks at sea.

Astronomers at the University of Virginia have identified one of the most iron-poor stars ever observed outside the Milky Way, a discovery that offers rare insight into how the very first stars lived and died.

The University of Virginia’s Department of Astronomy has long punched above its weight. Once a cornerstone of Thomas Jefferson’s vision for a model public-university education, the department today — backed by major new investments from the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and energized by ambitious, cross-disciplinary initiatives — is entering what Chair and Vanderbilt Professor of Astronomy Steven Majewski calls a defining era.

The Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch on Wednesday, will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey from Earth around the moon – the first time humans will travel that far into space since 1972. While the crew will not land on the moon, the mission marks a major step toward returning people to the lunar surface.

Astronomers have captured the first radio waves ever detected from a rare class of exploding star, a discovery that has given them an unprecedented look into the final years of a massive star before its death in a powerful stellar explosion called a supernova.