• Congratulations to Alex Gagliano, NSF Graduate Fellow at Astronomy Illinois for winning the "Best Student Paper" award at The American Statistical Association Astrostatistics Interest Group 2021 Joint Statistical Meeting!
     Posted: 2021-08-12
  • High school students got first-hand experience studying space and the Universe last week through the Girls' Astronomy Summer Camp run by the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NCSA's Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS). Read more...
     Posted: 2021-07-20
  • Congratulations to Patrick Mullen for successfully defending his PhD thesis Wednesday, June 30.
     Posted: 2021-07-01
  • Congratulations to Jennifer Li for successfully defending her thesis on Tuesday, June 15!
     Posted: 2021-06-16
  • Congratulations to the 2021 Astronomy graduates: Alexander Basler, Kunal Bhatia, Kelley Chau, Kaiyuan Dou, Jorge Espinoza, Justin Gaetz, Alex Garcia, Kameron Gausling, Archit Gupta, Jake Hawkins, Matthew Hoyle, Zhenghai Liu, Bashitha Mandava, Daniel Milgram, Daniel Montoya, Peyton Pielet, Sahaj Putcha, Japneet Singh, Yuchen Wang, and Zhengyuan Yu!
     Posted: 2021-05-17
  • Grad student alumna, Miguel Holgado, and his Illinois colleagues recently published their findings about neutron stars. Read more about it here
     Posted: 2021-05-11
  • Prof. Stu Shapiro has co-authored a new book in relativity. Entitled "Numerical Relativity: Starting From Scratch" (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge) 2021, it is designed for students and researchers without backgrounds in general relativity who want to understand and use the tools of numerical relativity and run community codes that use these tools.  Read more about it...
     Posted: 2021-05-06
  • The Astronomy Department is proud to host the Illinois Astrofest on April 2021. It is open to everyone in the campus community, but registration is required. More information is found here.
     Posted: 2021-04-12
  • Emeritus Astronomy Professor Laird Thompson has a newly published book. The book reflects on cosmic voids and the journey to have his findings accepted. Read more about it.
     Posted: 2021-03-24
  • The Department of Astronomy is sad to announce the passing of Professor Emeritus Lew Snyder.  He was a big influence on the Department for 30 years, serving as the Director of the Laboratory for Astronomical Imaging for many years and as the Chair of the Department in 2002- 2005. The family has established the Lew Snyder Memorial Fund that will be used to support graduate students. You can...
     Posted: 2021-02-09
  • Congratulations to Prof. Emeritus You-Hua Chu for being named an AAS Fellow!  And congratulations to Illinois PhD alum (1984) John Hawley for also being named an AAS Fellow.
     Posted: 2021-02-05
  • We are happy to announce that the observatory roof will finally be renovated. The dome will be included, but we will keep it as original as possible. If you want to help with the Observatory renovations (plans include interior upgrades but we need help), consider donations to either the Department of Astronomy Annual Fund or Friends of the Observatory Fund (...
     Posted: 2020-11-12
  • Alum Dr. Dom Segura-Cox led a team that included Prof. Looney that discovered multiple rings and gaps in the disk of a young star.  This is the youngest star that these structures have been seen in yet, suggesting that the conditions for planet formation are favorable at even younger times than thought before.  Our solar system may have looked very similar to this system within its...
     Posted: 2020-10-09
  • Congratulations to Di Wen who successfully defended his thesis on Wednesday, October 7, 2020.
     Posted: 2020-10-07
  • A team led by Illinois astronomers Qian Yang (postdoctoral researcher), Prof. Yue Shen and Prof. Xin Liu discover the longest echos from the heart of faraway galaxies. Read more about it here
     Posted: 2020-10-01