Long before he was simulating the early universe, Illinois astronomy professor Kirk Barrow spent a summer teaching himself quantum physics from a borrowed textbook.At the time,...
PURSUE LAS is a program at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences with the goal of expanding access to transformative undergraduate research experiences. It supports both established...
Researchers, students, and faculty gathered Friday, April 24, for Illini AstroFest, a daylong event designed to showcase astrophysics research, spark collaboration, and build community among scientists at every stage of their careers.Held at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the...
When Annie Zeng walked into her first research conference last May, she didn’t arrive with a lab group or a familiar cohort of classmates. She arrived alone, and she immediately felt like it.“I honestly felt very nervous,” said Annie, a senior pursuing a double degree in...
Scientists have been able to detect the presence of gravitational waves since 2015, when the first instruments capable of doing so were set up. However, these instruments capture many other signals as well. Sometimes these signals’ sources are easy to identify—perhaps there was a small earthquake,...
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...
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...
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...
