News
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Elena Maria Rossi continues her search for the origins of the largest black holes, but now as a professor 09 October 2023
Elena Maria Rossi is fascinated by black holes. Her appointment as a professor was a long-held wish, partly because there are so few female professors...
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Nienke van der Marel receives New Horizons Prize 15 September 2023
Nienke van der Marel has been awarded the New Horizons Prize in physics for her pioneering research on planet formation. This prize is given to young,...
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Star birth: a slow and mysterious drama 15 September 2023
A star does not just appear in the sky overnight. Its creation takes tens of thousands of years. Twenty years ago, astronomers took a picture of a sta...
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Motion of stars near Milky Way's central black hole is only predictable for few hundred years 13 September 2023
The orbits of 27 stars orbiting closely around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way are very chaotic. As a result, researchers cannot predict...
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Uncovering galaxy evolution and the nature of dark matter 10 August 2023
Dark matter represents around eighty per cent of the total mass in the Universe. Yet, we still don't really know what it's made of. Astronomer Pavel M...
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Michiel Hogerheijde new Programme Director at Leiden Observatory 03 August 2023
Michiel Hogerheijde will be the new Programme Director of the bachelor Astronomy starting 1 October. The appointment is for four years. Hogerheijde su...
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Veni grants for 16 Leiden researchers 03 August 2023
Sixteen researchers at Leiden University are to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). These awards off...
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Space telescope Euclid makes first test images - astronomers are full of anticipation 01 August 2023
The two instruments of ESA's space telescope Euclid have taken their first test images. The first images indicate that the space telescope will achiev...
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What was there first? Water or planets? 28 July 2023
Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that....
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Tracking the origin and evolution of molecules in space 28 July 2023
How do molecules originate and evolve in space? And how does that ultimately determine the chemical composition of planets and their atmospheres? The ...
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After the launch of the next big space mission: ‘This is a big step towards understanding dark matter and dark energy.’ 07 July 2023
What is it like to work on the fundamental questions about the universe? On July 1, the Euclid satellite launched successfully. This mission from the ...
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Sjoert van Velzen receives Vidi grant to solve 'riddles from the universe' 29 June 2023
Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to ...
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Surprising molecule helps detect protoplanets 28 June 2023
A team of scientists, including Leiden Astronomer Alice Booth, has discovered silicon monosulfide molecules in the dust disk around a young star. Such...
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Leiden PhD student discovers thin atmosphere on exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c with JWST 20 June 2023
A group of astronomers led by Leiden PhD student Sebastian Zieba has discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that the rocky exoplanet T...
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What tiny isotopes reveal about planets outside our solar system 01 June 2023
Planets existing in other solar systems contain invaluable information about the origin of planets and life. PhD candidate Yapeng Zhang has studied th...