News: 2020

We have recently received statements from Provost Lee and Dean Olinto regarding recent tragic events in Minneapolis, and indeed, throughout our country. I urge you to read these statements. Please know that, alongside the PSD and the University, the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the KICP remain committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Professor Andrew Fabian from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy has been awarded the 2020 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, one of the world's most prestigious science prizes. 

Nora’s dissertation research is on the discovery and modeling of Milky Way stellar streams, supervised by Alex Drlica-Wagner.

Congratulations to Karthik Ramanathan on receiving a 2020 Sugarman Award!

Congratulations to Phil Mansfield on receiving the 2020 Sugarman Award!
 

Congratulations to Maya Fishbach for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation on "Astrophysics and Cosmology with Gravitational Waves" (PhD Advisor: Daniel E. Holz).

Congratulations to Prof. Paolo Privitera

Fermilab, UChicago scientists tap South Pole Telescope data to shed light on universe

A team of scientists have demonstrated how to "weigh" galaxy clusters using light from the earliest moments of the universe - a new method that could help shed light on dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the cosmos, such as how the universe formed.

A new solar telescope in Hawaii has captured images of the sun unlike any seen before.  Professor Robert Rosner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and one of the lead investigators on the project, says he’s been waiting for almost 40 years to see images like the ones recently captured.

"The most exciting thing is always something you haven't anticipated. In astronomy, whenever we've invented a new way to look at the sky, we discover something new that no one had ever thought of before. Our gravitational wave detectors haven't discovered anything profoundly unexpected, at least not yet."
- Daniel Holz, astrophysicist