Star Formation At Virginia
Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) at Virginia
Instrumentation Laboratory at Virginia
Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics at Virginia
Astrochemistry at Virginia
World Class Facilities at Virginia
Planetary Science at Virginia
UVA astronomer Kelsey Johnson delivered a talk at the National Science Foundation's Distinguished Lectures series titled "How were the most ancient objects in the universe formed?". After her talk, she was interviewed by the NSF about her research, "Dark Skies, Bright Kids", and her views on the future of astronomy.
A 4,000-pound astronomy instrument called APOGEE-2, built in the last two years at the University of Virginia, will soon be crated up and transported on an 8,000-mile, two-month journey to its new home at the Las Campanas Observatory in the northern Chilean desert. The instrument – an infrared spectrograph - is designed to peer through cosmic dust to stars at the farthest reaches of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
University of Virginia astronomer Kelsey Johnson inspired 400 girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health at the first Girls Day in STEM-H at the University of Virginia's College at Wise.
Read more about the event in the article in the Kinsport Times-News
On September 22, 2016, an astronomy student led balloon project carried a custom payload to an altitude of 111,028 feet above Central Virginia. The goal of the project was to give undergraduate students experience with designing, building and flying a balloon based research platform.
UVA astronomer Anne Verbiscer helped find a new target in the Kuiper Belt, the icy body 2014 MU69, for the NASA New Horizons spacecraft. New Horizons will pay a visit to 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019.
Assistant Professor of Astronomy Nitya Kallivayalil has started a five-year collaboration with Spelman College, the nation’s oldest historically black college for women in Atlanta, as part of the NSF Early Career Development Award she received last year.
The discovery of subgaint stars opened the field of observational stellar evolution. Alan Sandage (Carnegie Institution) teamed up with Steven Majewski (University of Virginia), and Majewski’s student, Rachael Beaton (now a postdoc at Carnegie Institution) to delve into the history of the discovery of subgiant stars. They showed that the observations of the subgiants discovered at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1935 were remarkably accurate.
On April 22, 2016, seven Department of Astronomy undergraduates participated in the department's first Annual Astronomy Undergraduate Research Symposium. Their names and poster titles are listed below. These students presented their research to the rest of the department in a fashion similar to larger astronomy conferences, such as an AAS meeting. From professors to fellow undergraduates, the event was very well attended and provided an excellent opportunity for the students to share and discuss their projects, while celebrating their accomplishments.
In a new paper published last month in The Astronomical Journal, a team of astronomers led by Department of Astronomy graduate student Nicholas Troup has shown that the brown dwarf desert is not as barren as previously thought. UVA faculty members Steven Majewski, Michael Skrutskie and John Wilson in the Department of Astronomy collaborated on the findings as part of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, itself part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Astronomers had long expected that t
Undergraduate Astronomy-Physics major Martine Lokken has won a Minerva Award from the University of Virginia College Council. Minerva Awards fund scholarly projects that will be conducted by College students during the summer. The award is named for the goddess Minerva, found on the University seal, who is the Roman symbol of knowledge and creativity, and it is this spirit that the Council hopes to promote with this award.
Astronomy Professor Ilse Cleeves was awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering to support her research on astrochemistry and the formation of planets. The award was announced by... Read»
UVa Astronomy graduate student Thankful Cromartie led a paper published in Nature Astronomy detailing the discovery of the most massive neutron star ever observed. This work was conducted along... Read»
A group of astronomers, including Craig Sarazin from U.Va., have made the first high-resolution, high-frequency radio map of the Moon. The image, at a radio frequency of 90 GHz... Read»
