Institute of Astronomy

News and Press Releases

Galactic gas caused by colliding comets suggests mystery ‘shepherd’ exoplanet

Published on 06/03/2014 

Latest research has uncovered a massive clump of carbon monoxide in a young solar system. The gas is the result of near constant collisions of icy comets – suggesting vast swarms of tightly packed comets in thrall to the gravitational pull of an as-yet-unseen exoplanet.

Searching for new worlds with PLATO

Published on 20/02/2014 

Space eye with 34 telescopes will investigate one million stars

Gaia-ESO data suggest Milky Way may have formed ‘inside-out’, and provide new insights into Galactic evolution

Published on 19/01/2014 

Gaia-ESO data show Milky Way may have formed ‘inside-out’, and provide new insight into Galactic evolution

Research on first data release from Gaia-ESO project suggests the Milky Way formed by expanding out from the centre, and reveals new insights into the way our Galaxy was assembled.

Are a companion's comets a key to a curious exoplanet system?

Published on 17/12/2013 

The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Today, an international team of astronomers announced a new discovery with the Herschel Space Observatory that has made this system even more intriguing; the least massive star of the three in the Fomalhaut system, Fomalhaut C, has now been found to host its own comet belt. The researchers published their results today in a letter to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Stargazing Live event on Saturday 11th January

Published on 06/12/2013 

Extra public observing for Stargazing Live

The Institute of Astronomy and the Cambridge Astronomical Association will be holding an extra public observing session between 6 - 8pm on Saturday 11th January 2014 in support of the BBC's Stargazing Live.

If the weather is clear.... we shall be outside staffing telescopes outside on the Observatory lawns