It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague James B. Kaler, Emeritus Professor of Astronomy. Jim joined the Illinois faculty in 1964, right after finishing his PhD at UCLA with the thesis: "Recombination Spectra of Hydrogen and Helium in Gaseous Nebulae".  Since then, Jim had more than 450 publications ranging from that thesis to explaining "why your...

Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Harrison!  She defended her thesis "Mass Assembly in Protoplanetary Disks: Polarimetry as a Probe of Dust Growth and Accretion" Friday, November 4 with advisor Prof. Leslie Looney.

The Department of Astronomy is excited to be part of the new Data Science majors on campus. Astronomy + Data Science majors will take advantage of astronomy's close ties with data science and the large surveys observing now and over the next few years. Read about it here.

We are excited to announce that the Observatory was awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Park Service. These funds will be used to repair brick and other exterior components that will complement the university's funding to repair the roof. Thanks to Department members Prof. Bryan Dunne and Prof. Leslie Looney and the...

Join Physics and Astronomy Professor Nico Yunes at the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College on Sept 2 to discuss the science behind the fun planetarium show Einstein...

Congratulations to Professor Joaquin Vieira for his promotion to full professor! Read more here

Congratulations to Dr. Sreevani Jarugula! She defended her PhD thesis "Molecules in the Early Universe" on July 8, 2022  with advisor Prof. Joaquin Vieira.

Congratulations to Dr. Jesse Miller and Dr. Ada Ertel! They defended their PhD theses: "Consequences of Near-Earth Supernovae on the Heliosphere" and "Paleo-astronomy: Investigating Near-Earth Supernovae using the Geologic Record", respectively, with Prof. Brian Fields this week.    

The AAS has released the astronomical obituary of Illinois Emeritus Professor Ed Olson, who passed in 2020.  Ed was an expert on eclipsing and mass-transferring binary stellar systems. Read more here.

A team led by Prof. Tony Wong, and including Prof. Leslie Looney, showed that the star formation at the center of our Milky Way galaxy is still driven by gravity even with all the nearby massive stars providing intense feedback. Read about it here.

Prof. Xin Liu explains “what would happen if two supermassive black holes merged” in this month’s Astronomy Magazine.

Congratulations to Prof. Brian Fields, Prof. Telemachos Mouschovias, and grad student Grant Merz for being named to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent By Their Students for Spring 2022.  

We are excited to announce that applications are now open for the 2022 Girls’ Astronomy Summer Camp! This summer camp for high school students will be focused on hands-on astronomy projects. Join this two-day camp to play with real astronomical data and hang with UIUC professors and graduate students! Camp highlights: Work on real astronomy...

Congratulations to Prof. Gammie and his team as part of the international collaboration that just released the first image of the accretion disk surrounding the supermassive Black Hole at the center of our Galaxy. It's a great achievement. Read about it here.  

Congratulations to Dr. Paul Sutter, who was just awarded the 2022 Corones Award. Paul is one of our physics alums (worked with Prof. Ricker) and a great science communicator. Read about it here.