225 search results for “astrophysics” in the Public website
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Astronomers see whirlwind around possible exoplanet-in-the-making
An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Leiden University has discovered a whirlwind of dust and pebbles in orbit around a young star. It is possible that a planet is forming in the pebbles. The team of scientists made the discovery during the time that designers and developers…
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Astronomer Jorryt Matthee receives MERAC Prize for best thesis
Dutch astronomer Jorryt Matthee will receive the European MERAC Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis in observational astrophysics. Matthee received his doctorate at Leiden University in 2018 and is now doing research at ETH Zürich.
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Media about hundreds of thousands of unknown galaxies
An international team of more than 200 astronomers from 18 countries has published hundreds of thousands of unknown galaxies. The data are part of a project lead by Leiden professor of Observational cosmology Huub Röttgering. Both Dutch and international media reported extensively about the publica…
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Investment Grant NWO Medium for Simon Portegies Zwart
A revolutionary supercomputer with energy-efficient parts that are available in the shops. Professor of Computational Astrophysics Simon Portegies Zwart has been awarded an NWO Medium Grant to build this processing giant, which will have the power of a supercomputer but requires only one percent of…
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Open day at space research institute at Leiden Bio Science Park
SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, is holding an open day on Sunday 25 September. It has had a branch at the Leiden Bio Science Park since 2021 and works closely with Leiden University.
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Polariks wins starter competition LEF
The LEF 2017 Start-up competition has been won by Polariks and their coach Bart Hoenen. Competing for the prize, start-ups Polariks, 1915 Watches and Vrendly presented their respective entrepreneurial ideas to an audience of 350. After the presentations, the jury was tasked with the difficult job of…
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What do PAHs do in space?
Xander Tielens, Professor of Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Space, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to study polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in space. The combination of astronomical observations, computer models and lab research makes the research highly interdisciplinary.
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Van Engelshoven’s Letter to Parliament calls for more funding for science
‘Academics have descended from their ivory tower, but there’s still too little action or financing.’ Leiden professor of Science Communication Ionica Smeets saw all her wishes come true on 28 January, with the presentation of the Letter to Parliament sent by Minister Van Engelshoven of the Ministry…
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Long-awaited review reveals journey of water from interstellar clouds to habitable worlds
Professor Ewine van Dishoeck, together with an international team of colleagues, has written an overview of everything we know about water in interstellar clouds thanks to the Herschel space observatory. The article, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, summarizes existing knowledge and…
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Astronomers finally measure polarised light from exoplanet
An international team led by Leiden astronomers has, after years of searching and defying the boundaries of a telescope, for the first time directly captured polarised light from an exoplanet. From this light they can deduct that a disk of dust and gas orbits the exoplanet. In this disk moons are possibly…
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A rapidly developing international friendship
Staff and student mobility, a cooperative education programme and the possibility of a joint research center in artificial intelligence and data science. A delegation from Chinese partner XJTU paid a fruitful visit to the Faculty of Science in the last week of October.
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Sculptures provide more diverse view of University’s history
Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…
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72 galaxies never deteted before
Using the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, an international team of scientists, including many Leiden astronomers, have conducted the deepest spectroscopic survey ever. They focused on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, measuring distances and properties of 1600 very faint galaxies…
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Glycine in space produced by dark chemistry
An international team of laboratory astrophysicists and astrochemical modellers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results have been published this week in Nature Astronomy and…
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Leiden astronomers calculate genesis of Oort cloud in chronological order
A team of Leiden astronomers has managed to calculate the first 100 million years of the history of the Oort cloud in its entirety. Until now, only parts of the history had been studied separately. The cloud, with roughly 100 billion comet-like objects, forms an enormous shell at the edge of our solar…
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Science delegation enhances influence in China
A large delegation composed of 11 delegates from institutes from the Faculty of Science has made an extensive visit to China and enhanced Leiden’s influence in the Chinese academia, industry and local government.
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Move of SRON space research institute to South Holland now official
By adding their signature to the collaboration agreement on 31 May, Leiden University, TU Delft, space research institute SRON and NWO confirmed the move of SRON from Utrecht to South Holland. From 2021, the headquarters of the space research institute will be located on the Campus of Leiden Univ…
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Ewine van Dishoeck receives honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva
Astrophysicist Ewine van Dishoeck has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva. She received the award on 11 October during the Dies academicus of the Swiss university, which, like Leiden University, is part of the European research university federation LERU.
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‘Building blocks for life' may originate in space
Amino acids are the building blocks for life on earth. They may originate in space and reach the Earth via comets and meteorites. Daniël Paardekooper examined part of this hypothesis. PhD defence on 5 July.
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Giant rings orbit wrong way around exoplanet
Researchers from Japan and the Netherlands who were previously involved in the discovery of an exoplanet with huge rings have now calculated that the giant rings may persist more than 100,000 years, as long as the rings orbit in the opposite direction to that of the planet around the star. Their findings…
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Clusters of galaxies better in view with radio X-ray combination
Through the clever use of two types of telescopes, a team of researchers has produced stunning images of clusters of galaxies. This not only produces beautiful images, but also provides more information about the enormous amounts of energy released around supermassive black holes in clusters. The astronomers,…
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Ewine van Dishoeck receives ERC Advanced Grant for research into the chemistry of new worlds
Leiden Professor of Molecular astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck has been awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). She has been awarded 2.3 million euros in research funding for the MOLDISK programme. Within this programme, Van Dishoeck wants to connect chemistry and physics in…
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First pile of the new SRON building: 'A new impetus for space travel and astronomy'
‘We intend to use the arrival of SRON in South Holland to give a serious impetus to research and activities related to space travel and astronomy in the broadest sense of the word.' These were the words of Rector Carel Stolker of Leiden University at the ceremony where the first pile of the new SRON…
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Solar telescope officially unveiled in Old Observatory
After nearly 70 years, the Leiden Observatory has a new telescope. A crowdfunding action in March brought in the 20,000 euros required to build a solar telescope. On 19 September Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker officiated at the opening.
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Ewine van Dishoeck in children's book: 'Follow your heart and make sure you become very good at something'
Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck is portrayed as a heroine in a pictorial children's book. ‘It starts with a dream' tells the stories of twenty exceptional Dutch women who have had a positive impact on society. The book aims to give young girls role models and encourage them to…
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First photo of black hole at the heart of our Galaxy
Finally we know for sure that there is a black hole at the centre of our own galaxy. Today, astronomers unveiled the first ever photo of Sagittarius A*, a super-massive object at the centre of the Milky Way. This picture could only be taken thanks to the cooperation of telescopes worldwide.
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Honorary doctorates and prizes
Leiden University regularly confers honorary doctorates, and presents awards and prizes.
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Ewine van Dishoeck shows us new worlds in Dies lecture
Her specialist field is molecular astrophysics, and she is the most quoted scholar in her field. In this, the year of astronomy, she is the ideal person to give the Dies lecture at the university with the world's oldest astronomy institute; it goes without saying that the lecture will be on the newest…
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Tracing space ice and the building blocks of life
An unprecedented space telescope, an astrolab that makes space ice and molecules that may lead to the origin of life… The Ice Age project has all the prerequisites to become a very fascinating research project – if it is not one already. Leiden astronomers Melissa McClure, Harold Linnartz and Will Rocha…
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Planeetvormende schijven evolueren verrassend vergelijkbaar
Our solar system probably evolved in the same way as most of the other planetary systems around us. This has been shown by German-Austrian-Dutch research on more than 870 planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud A. The five researchers, including three from the Leiden Observatory, published their findings…
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Uncovering galaxy evolution and the nature of dark matter
Dark matter represents around eighty per cent of the total mass in the Universe. Yet, we still don't really know what it's made of. Astronomer Pavel Mancera Piña is looking for answers. With a Veni grant from NWO and the most advanced telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, he will investigate…
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Towards molecular complexity in birth places of stars: Formaldehyde formation from carbon atoms reacting with water ice
Scientists at Leiden University (Netherlands), Stuttgart University (Germany) and Ural Federal University (Russia) have successfully put forward a novel, computed, reaction mechanism that was experimentally tested and show that formaldehyde is formed at much earlier stages in the birthplaces of stars…
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Major upgrade for undersea neutrino detector
Building the neutrino detector KM3NeT on the Mediterranean Sea floor has picked up pace. Five detection lines, each carrying eighteen detectors, have been sunk and installed, and the first measurement data are coming in, says neutrino physicist Dorothea Samtleben.
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Newton-telescope finds missing intergalactic material
Astronomers from, among others, SRON and Leiden Observatory have discovered long-sought intergalactic gas with ESA’s space telescope XMM-Newton. This gas is one of the pieces of the puzzle to map the total amount of ‘normal’ matter in the universe. The research will be published in Nature on 21 June…
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ESO instrument METIS passes important design milestone
The METIS instrument that’s being built for ESO's future Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in Northern Chile under the leadership of the Dutch Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) has reached an important milestone: the preliminary design has been approved.
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Habitable planets around pulsars theoretically possible
It is theoretically possible that habitable planets exist around pulsars, rotating neutron stars. Such planets must have an enormous atmosphere that convert the deadly X-rays and high energy particles of the pulsar into heat. That is stated in a scientific paper by astronomers Alessandro Patruno and…
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Most detailed galaxy photos yet are world news
Media all around the world reported about it: the most detailed images yet seen of galaxies, shot by radio telescope LOFAR. The international team behind these amazing results were led by Leah Morabito at Durham University and included three talented Leiden astronomers.
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‘Relocation SRON only offers opportunities’
SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is moving. In 2021, the Utrecht branch of the institute will be located in South-Holland. Leiden professor Paul van der Werf sees the move as a great enrichment: ‘It will all be much easier when SRON is located here behind us in the parking lot two years…
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Oxygen line opens new perspective on the far universe
A team of astronomers of Leiden University and the University of Texas (Austin, United States) has discovered a new way to map distant galaxies. They did so by observing the fingerprint of oxygen in a distant galaxy, something that is usually not possible from Earth. The researchers will publish their…
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Auroras on nineteen stars hint at hidden exoplanets
An international team of scientists including Leiden's Joe Callingham has discovered nineteen red dwarf stars that unexpectedly emit radio waves. The outbursts possibly originate from interaction with exoplanets. The results of the research appear in two scientific publications.
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First direct detection of a brown dwarf with a radio telescope
Astronomers at ASTRON and Leiden University have used the LOFAR radio telescope to discover a 'brown dwarf' – a faint object more massive than Jupiter, but significantly less massive than the Sun. The discovery of the object dubbed Elegast, opens up a new path that uses radio telescopes to discover…
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Royal Astronomical Society honours team behind first picture black hole with 2021 Group Achievement Award
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration receives the 2021 Royal Astronomical Society Group Achievement Award. In April 2019, the EHT team presented the first-ever photograph of the shadow of a black hole. Leiden professor Huib-Jan van de Langevelde has been director of EHT since last year. Three…
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Astronomy at Dutch universities is worldleading
Astronomy departments at Dutch universities is among the top of the world rankings for astronomical institutions. This is the conclusion drawn from a recent evaluation of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) and the astronomy institutions of the University of Amsterdam, the University…
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First discovery of high-energy neutrino source
For the first time, scientists have traced back a high-energy neutrino to its source in space. It was produced by a so-called blazar—a supermassive black hole. Researchers from neutrino detector IceCube report this in Science. ‘This is a milestone for neutrino science,’ says physicist Dorothea Samtleben…
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Awards and Grants 2020
An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.
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Complex Organic Molecules Discovered in Infant Star System
For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star. The discovery reaffirms that the conditions that spawned the Earth and Sun are not unique in the Universe. The results are published…
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New detection method for quasars in the early Universe
Astronomers from Leiden Observatory have developed a new method to find distant quasars and better distinguish them from other objects that look like them, using machine learning techniques. The research result has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. It is the last…
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Gigantic ring system discovered around exoplanet J1407b
Astronomers from the Leiden Observatory and from the University of Rochester (in the US) have discovered that the planetary ring system that covered the very young sun-like star J1407 is actually of enormous proportions. In fact, it’s much larger and heavier than the ring system surrounding Saturn.…
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Europe to foster the Social-Economical Impact of Astronomy
The European Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (E-ROAD) has held its first conference session at the 2020 virtual Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS), the largest astronomy conference in Europe. The E-ROAD is an initiative of the International Astronomical Union, the…
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‘Scientists should be careful when interpreting results of AI models’
Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.