Department of Astronomy

University of Virginia astronomer Dr. Mike Skrutskie and former UVA Ph.D. student Dr. Jarron Leisenring used the Large Binocular Telescope to make landmark observations of a giant lava lake on Jupiter's moon Io. Details on the observations and what they found are in this UVAToday article.

UVA astronomers are designing and building a $6 million instrument, APOGEE-2, that will allow astronomer to measure the motions and chemical compositions of hundreds of thousands of stars at distances up to 25,000 light years. Follow this link to an article in UVAToday about the project.

Newly formed dwarf galaxies were likely the reason that the universe heated up about 13 billion years ago, according to new work by an international team of scientists that included University of Virginia astronomer Trinh Thuan. The finding opens an avenue for better understanding the early period of the universe’s 14 billion year history.

Read the UVA Today article