2026-02-20
- Sude Baltaci has been named a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award winner by the American Astronomical Society, recognizing the excellence of their poster presentation at the 247th AAS Meeting held this winter in Phoenix, Arizona. Baltaci is a fourth-year student...
2026-02-17 - As one might expect on a bitterly cold Thursday evening, the bar fills up early. Conversations overlap, beer is served, glasses clink. Then things get interesting. Someone sets up a projector. As the crowd jockeys for a good view, in walks Charles Gammie, an Illinois astronomy and physics professor who was part of the...
2026-02-10 - Astronomy professor Leslie Looney recently appeared on The UIUC Talkshow for a wide-ranging conversation about what astronomy really is—and what it means to explore a universe that’s often difficult to even imagine. In the episode, he reflects on how astronomers turn faint signals...
2026-01-20 - The universe is vast, but astronomers don’t have to look too far to find something genuinely new. Researchers at the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS) used the South Pole Telescope to probe one of the most complex regions of the sky, the crowded inner Milky Way, and uncovered powerful, short-lived bursts of millimeter-wavelength light from two...
2025-12-16 - Colliding galaxies, rogue black holes, wandering meteors — the most dangerous phenomena in the universe make up the lessons in one of the most popular 100-level courses at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Starting in the 2026-2027 academic year, “ASTR 150: Killer Skies: Astro Disasters” will be one of four U. of I. courses also taught in the classrooms of select Illinois high schools...
2025-12-15 - When a nova erupts, it’s often described as a single dramatic blast—but new observations suggest the real story is far more complex. In a recent Nature Astronomy paper, an international team used the CHARA Array’s cutting-edge infrared interferometer to capture the most detailed early images of two nova explosions to date....
2025-11-25 - The National Center for Supercomputing Applications awarded Fiddler Innovation Fellowships to 38 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and NCSA graduate students in a ceremony on October 31 honoring their outstanding achievements and...
2025-11-04 - Patrick Aleo (PhD, astronomy ’24) still remembers the first time he looked through a telescope. He was in elementary school when his parents bought one for his brother, and one night, he took a turn at the eyepiece.“I looked at the full moon and I was transfixed,” he recalled. “Before that, things in space never felt real or tangible. From then...
2025-10-29 - Please join us in congratulating Jianyang (Frank) Fu on the successful defense of his Ph.D. thesis last week!Frank will be continuing his research journey as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University. We wish him all the best as he takes this exciting next step in his career!
2025-08-26 - When Jiayin Dong walks across the University of Illinois campus this fall, it will feel familiar and entirely new.Dong, an incoming assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy, is returning to Illinois as a faculty member, where she earned her undergraduate degrees in Engineering Physics and Astronomy. Previously a...
2025-08-11 - The Simons Foundation has awarded $8 million to launch the Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity, bringing together 12 leading scientists from across the globe, including Illinois Physics professor and Astronomy affiliate professor Nicolás Yunes, who will direct the effort. This multidisciplinary network...
2025-07-29 - When Decker French learned she had been named a Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors Scholar, it was a complete surprise.“I didn’t know that I was nominated,” she said. “So it was a very pleasant surprise! It is incredibly rewarding to have this kind of recognition for work that’s been evolving since I first joined the...
2025-07-01 - From flunking physics to commanding sailors and scanning the stars, Illinois alumnus Grant Miller’s journey is anything but ordinary. What started as a childhood fascination with the cosmos and a rocky freshman year at the U of I eventually led to a thriving dual career as an astronomy professor and a commissioned U.S. Navy intelligence officer.In this inspiring story from the Illinois Alumni...
2025-06-24 - It began with a problem of scale. Modern telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, set to begin operations in October 2025, are poised to revolutionize astronomy by capturing unprecedented volumes of data—millions of time-variable astrophysical events across the sky each night. But with this scale comes a new challenge: How do you process, classify, and interpret this firehose of...
2025-06-24 - The Department of Astronomy sadly announces the passing of our friend and colleague, Icko Iben, Jr., distinguished professor emeritus of astronomy and physics. Professor Iben's research made an indelible mark on astrophysics and on this campus. He pioneered the theory of how stars work and how they pass through their dramatic life cycles. His specialty was the late phases of stellar evolution...