Congratulations to the awesome Astronomy Class of 2020! Best wishes on your future endeavors--you make us proud! Forty-Five Astronomy and CS+Astronomy seniors graduated on May 16, 2020 during an online ceremony.   The students are: Nirali Bhatt, Vivek Bhookya, Barry Chiang, Tori Colthurst, Elizabeth De Sa E Silva, Devanshi Pratap, Keslie Elketroussi, Lina Florez, Lauren...

Congratulations to UIUC graduate student Alex Gagliano for winning the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program! We look forward to the great science Alex will be doing as he works towards his Ph.D.!

Prof. Felipe Menanteau and Astronomy Senior Lina Florez are part of Cena y Ciencias (Supper and Science), a science and pizza night conducted in Spanish with scientists of Hispanic heritage, led by Prof. Menanteau . In early March, before Shelter in Place, they did a great program about heat and temperature. Read more here “...

Congratulations to Lauren Gregory, an astronomy major at Illinois, who received the award for Best Poster at the recent Women in Data Science Conference at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Lauren works with Prof. Matias Carrasco Kind of NCSA and Astronomy on the The Dark Energy Survey.

Hubble Space Telescope/European Space Agency made a photo release of a Hubble Space Telescope observations from Illinois astronomers led by Prof. Leslie Looney.  This star-forming region is in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. They predict the highest mass star in the cluster is ~30 times the mass of our sun.  The total mass of stars in the cluster is ~600 times the...

Andrew Nadolski earned his PhD on March 9, 2020. The title of his defense was "Broadband, millimeter-wave antireflection coatings for cryogenic sintered aluminum oxide optics". Congratulations, Andrew!

Illinois Prof. Looney was among the science team that released high resolution images of hundred of young stars (and the disks that surround them) in Orion; the largest survey of young stars and their disks to date.  The images reveal the first stages of planet formation and extend our understanding of how stars and planets evolve. Read about it...

Prof. Xin Liu has been recognized as a Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholar by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Congratulations, Xin!

 The Department of Astronomy and the Center for Astrophysical Surveys announces the "Supernovae across LSST" workshop to be held April 27-29, 2020 at the Illini Union. The workshop aims to coordinate activities across the different science collaborations to prepare for first light at the Vera Rubin Observatory, and supernova science with LSST. The event is free to Astronomy...

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for creating the first image of a supermassive black hole, taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes. The team included many current and former Illinois faculty, staff, and students, with simulations led by Astronomy and Physics Professor Charles Gammie.  ...

Professor Yue Shen has been promoted to Associate Professor of Astronomy. Congratulations, Yue!

We are happy to welcome our new Assistant Professor Gautham Narayan to the Department. Professor Narayan’s research is at the intersection of cosmology, astrophysics, and data science. He specializes in the study of exploding stars and other extreme events such as the destruction of stars by supermassive black holes; his work illuminates the properties of transient populations and their...

Congratulations to astronomy graduate student Jennifer Li on being selected to receive a 2019-20 NASA/Illinois Space Grant Consortium Fellowship!

Taylor Tobin earned her PhD on July 15, 2019. The title of her defense was "Observational and Theoretical Studies of SiO Maser Polarization toward Late-Type Evolved Stars: Insights from EVPA Reversal Features". Congratulations, Taylor!

Fifty years ago this month, human beings first walked on another world.  Join Illinois Astronomers to celebrate this achievement. Illinois Public Media  interviewed Astronomy faculty discussing the ongoing scientific returns, and larger technological and cultural significance of the Apollo Landings.  And on Thursday July 18,...