Public Nights at McCormick Observatory
Near-Field Cosmology at Virginia
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
A team of astronomers and instrument scientists are installing the APOGEE-South spectrograph at the Irénée du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. APOGEE-South will measure the chemical compositions and motions of hundreds of thousands of stars in the southern sky as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to help astronomers answer questions about the formation of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Rukmani Vijayaraghavan, a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, was interviewed by the website 500 Women Scientists about her Girls Exploring the Universe summer science camp for middle school girls.
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.
Theo O’Neill wants to understand how stars are formed. They will now pursue their research as recently named a Goldwater Scholar. Goldwater Scholarships are awarded through a partnership between... Read»
Three University of Virginia astronomers research projects were selected for the first cycle of the James Webb Telescope’s General Observer programs. Assistant professor L. Ilsedore “Ilse” Cleeves... Read»
Ilse Cleeves, astronomy, University of Virginia, is among 24 outstanding teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy named recipients of Research Corporation for Science... Read»
