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The kick-off of the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger studies in Europe ACME, an EU-funded project built by and for the astroparticle and the astronomy communities

Tue, 01/10/2024 - 12:04

On the 16 th and 17 th of September was held in Paris the kick-off meeting for the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger studies in Europe - ACME. This HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01 EU-funded project coordinated by Centre national de la recherche scientifique CNRS aims to realize an ambitious coordinated European-wide...

Pioneering astrophysics scholars announced as scholarship applications open for 2025

Tue, 01/10/2024 - 10:08

Two exceptional female astrophysicists will take up Master’s degree places at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge this month as the first recipients of The Parasol Foundation Scholarship. This new award is launched by Murray Edwards College in partnership with Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy to encourage more...

Announcing £5.25m funding for SPACE from Cancer Grand Challenges team IMAXT

Fri, 13/09/2024 - 15:50

A team of researchers has today (Friday 13th) been awarded more than £5m* to establish the Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence (SPACE) to open up access to their groundbreaking cancer mapping technology and establish collaborations with other scientists to enable them to investigate tumours in 3D. The...

ALMA Detects Hallmark “Wiggle” of Gravitational Instability in Planet-Forming Disk

Thu, 05/09/2024 - 11:10

Interferometry of stunning spiral arms around young star reveals gravity’s hand in planet formation Traditionally, planet formation has been described as a “bottom-up” process, as dust grains gradually collect into bigger conglomerations over tens of millions of years: from microns, to centimeters, to meters, to kilometers...

IoA spin-out SuperSharp awarded £5M grant

Wed, 31/07/2024 - 15:00

More than 20 national space projects have been announced today by DSIT Secretary of State Peter Kyle, on the opening day of the Farnborough International Airshow The projects, worth £33 million, come from the UK Space Agency’s National Space Innovation Programme – designed to invest in high-potential technologies, drive...

Astronomers Use AI to Find Elusive Stars “Gobbling Up” Planets

Wed, 31/07/2024 - 10:06

An international team (including IoA astronomers Laura Rogers and Amy Bonsor) have recently found hundreds of “polluted” white dwarf stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. These are white dwarfs caught actively consuming planets in their orbit. They are a valuable resource for studying the interiors of these distant...

Professor George Efstathiou is awarded the Albert Einstein Medal 2024

Thu, 25/07/2024 - 16:40

We are pleased to announce that Professor George Efstathiou (IoA director 2004-2008) is awarded the Albert Einstein Medal 2024. The medal is awarded to deserving individuals for outstanding scientific findings, works, or publications related to Albert Einstein. The award ceremony will take place on October 9, 2024 during...

Martin Rees is the 2024 Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics

Tue, 09/07/2024 - 13:21

Lord Martin Rees (born in England in 1942) is one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of our time, with seminal contributions in a large number of areas, from cosmology and the formation of the first stars and galaxies to high-energy astrophysics, to the formation and evolution of massive black holes in the...

Simons Observatory Begins Hunt for Echoes of the Big Bang in Universe’s Oldest Light

Thu, 20/06/2024 - 15:51

From a vantage point high in the Chilean Andes, cosmologists with the Simons Observatory have begun searching for evidence of what happened in the minuscule fraction of a second that followed the Big Bang. The observatory, which just completed its main construction phase, will make some of the most precise measurements...

Drawing a line back to the origin of life: Graphitization could provide simplicity scientists are looking for

Thu, 25/04/2024 - 11:57

Scientists from the Cambridge University have suggested that molecules vital to the development of life could have formed from a process known as graphitisation. Once verified in the laboratory, the finding could allow scientists to recreate plausible conditions for life's emergence. It has long been debated how the...

Groundbreaking survey reveals secrets of planet birth around dozens of stars

Tue, 23/04/2024 - 12:28

In a series of studies, a team of astronomers (including IoA postdoc Álvaro Ribas) has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The stunning images, captured using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, represent one of the largest ever surveys of...

Sleeping giant surprises Gaia scientists

Tue, 16/04/2024 - 11:14

Wading through the wealth of data from ESA’s Gaia mission , scientists have uncovered a ‘sleeping giant’. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, was hiding in the constellation Aquila, less than 2000 light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole of stellar origin this big has...

First ‘glory’ on hellish distant world?

Fri, 05/04/2024 - 09:21

In brief For the first time, a team of astronomers (including IoA astronomer Nic Walton) have spotted potential signs of a rainbow-like ‘glory effect’ on a planet outside our Solar System. Glory are colourful concentric rings of light that occur only under peculiar conditions. Data from ESA’s sensitive Characterising...

Neon sign identified by JWST gives clue to planet formation

Tue, 05/03/2024 - 15:31

The winds that help to form planets in the gaseous discs of early solar systems have been imaged for the first time by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) using the noble gases neon and argon. Planetary systems like our Solar System seem to contain more rocky objects than gas-rich ones. Around our sun, these include the...

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: the cosmic fertiliser that fuelled the origins of life

Tue, 20/02/2024 - 13:08

The origin of life is an event so rare that, to the best of our knowledge, it has only happened once: here on Earth. The questions of how life developed and in what environments geochemical reactions took place are fundamental questions that span the fields of astrobiology, organic chemistry, and geology. One key...

Insights into Dark Matter's 'Coldness' Open New Cosmic Frontiers

Thu, 15/02/2024 - 14:55

cdm_2_copy.jpg In their latest research on dark matter scientists have collected vital clues about the ‘coldness’ of the mysterious component making up 80% of all matter, revealing a deep connection between dark matter and the formation of galaxies in the early Universe. With the help of powerful telescopes, the...

Douglas Gough awarded The Crafoord Prize in Astronomy

Wed, 31/01/2024 - 18:14

The Crafoord Prize in Astronomy The Crafoord Prize in Astronomy 2024 is awarded to Douglas Gough , University of Cambridge, UK, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard , Aarhus University, Denmark, and Conny Aerts , KU Leuven, Belgium “for developing the methods of asteroseismology and their application to the study of the interior...

ESA gives go-ahead for flagship gravitational-wave observatory in space

Thu, 25/01/2024 - 13:16

germl2rwwaa-rym.jpeg Following today´s Adoption, the LISA mission advances to the construction phase LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, has passed a major review with flying colours: the entire concept - from the definition of the overall mission and operations to the space hardware to be built - stood up to the...

International team awarded $3.7M to build a next generation haloscope to search for the axion

Fri, 19/01/2024 - 11:26

hp_dec_23_art.jpeg Physics breakthroughs don’t always require city-sized particle colliders or giant radio telescope arrays. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation , the Simons Foundation , the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation have partnered to fund 11 innovative “tabletop” experiments, many of...

Webb reveals that galaxy mergers are the solution to early Universe mystery

Thu, 18/01/2024 - 14:12

weic2402a-2.jpg One of the key missions of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is to probe the early Universe. Now, the unmatched resolution and sensitivity of Webb’s NIRCam instrument have revealed, for the first time, what lies in the local environment of galaxies in the very early Universe. This has solved one...