Department News


2013: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

April 2013
April 11, 2013
Rocky Kolb has been appointed Dean of the Physical Sciences Division

Congratulations Rocky!
And thanks for taking on this challenge on behalf of the Physical Sciences and the University of Chicago.

Angela Olinto,
Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics


April 1, 2013
Congratulations to Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics students Laura Kreidberg and Megan Bedell for winning NSF Graduate Research Fellowships!

Megan Bedell is a first-year graduate student. Her current research projects include analyzing millimeter-wave observations of massive star-forming regions with Prof. Doyal Harper, and searching for exoplanets using the radial velocity technique with Prof. Jacob Bean.

Laura Kreidberg is a second-year graduate student and a doctoral candidate. Her research is focused on studies of super-Earth atmospheres using the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes in collaboration with Prof. Jacob Bean.

March 2013
March 5, 2013
University of Chicago joins the Extreme Universe Space Observatory

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded a $4.4 million grant to a collaboration of scientists at five U.S. universities and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to help build a telescope for deployment on the International Space Station in 2017.

The U.S. collaboration is part of a 13-nation effort to build the 2.5-meter ultraviolet telescope, called the Extreme Universe Space Observatory. The telescope will monitor the Earth's atmosphere searching for the mysterious source of the most energetic particles in the universe from the ISS's Japanese Experiment Module.

The source of these energetic particles, called ultra high-energy cosmic rays, has remained one of the great mysteries of science since French physicist Pierre Auger discovered them 75 years ago. These cosmic rays consist of protons and other subatomic scraps of matter that fly through the universe at almost light speed.

"The science goal is to discover the sources of ultra high-energy cosmic rays by observing their traces in the atmosphere looking 250 miles from the ISS down to the surface," said Angela Olinto, professor in astronomy & astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Olinto leads the U.S. collaboration, which includes scientists at the Colorado School of Mines, University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Marshall Space Flight Center. [more]

January 2013
January 7, 2013
Applications for the 2013-2014 academic year are NOW closed as of January 4th, 2013.

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