Astronomy & Astrophysics

201 Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB)
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Phone: (831) 459-2844
Fax: Business Hours M-F (831) 459-5265
Alternate Weekend Fax: (831) 426-3115
Email: dept [at] astro [dot] ucsc [dot] edu

Maps & Directions



© 2008 The Regents of the University of California

Maintained by dept [at] astro [dot] ucsc [dot] edu


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Twin Keck 10 m telescopes with Subaru, Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
DEIMOS spectrograph being assembled in Lick Shops, Santa Cruz.
Main buidling and poppies. Lick Observatory
(Image courtesty of L. Hatch © )
Rendering of the Thirty-Meter Telescope in dome.
Rendering of the Thirty-Meter Telescope showing mirror segments.
The Illingworth group discovered many galaxies merging to form ellipticals in the distant galaxy cluster MS1054-03 (HST).
First light with DEIMOS spectrograph on Keck2 telescope, June 2002.
Via Lactea I simulation of Milky Way dark matter and satellites (Diemand and Madau)

ASTRO BLASTS JUST IN......

 

UCSC Astronomy department professors Faber and Krumholz lead fellow UC professors in warning State and University Officials against faculty salary cuts that last more than one year. [More]

300 eminent UC Scientists write Governor Schwarzenegger regarding latest round of proposed cuts to UC budget.  Full text may be found here.

 

UCSC earns top ranking for scientific impact of Astronomy research

UC Santa Cruz is the top-ranking university in the country for the quality of its research in astronomy and astrophysics, according to a new analysis of papers published in scientific journals and how often those papers are cited by other scientists. [More]


Highlights

Supernova: Seeding Talent in Physics and Astrophysics to Prepare the Next Generation Workforce in the Bay Area
asteinac [at] ucsc [dot] edu (Adriane Steinacker) (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics) and David Belanger (Department of Physics) have received a five year grant of $600,000 from the National Science Foundation with the goal of creating opportunities for talented but financially needy students to complete a baccalaureate degree in physics or astrophysics, a track that will ensure them high chances of landing a well-paid job with a broad range of choices. [More] 






Thinking at the edge

News

new Astronomer Raja Guhathakurta mentors Intel science contest finalist [02/03/2010] [link]
new UCSC Astronomer Greg Laughlin joins acclaimed composer Philip Glass
February 21 to explore the music of the universe at the Rubin Art Museum in New York.
 [02/01/2010] [link]
new An international team including UCSC astrophysicist Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
 has used very long baseline interferometry techniques to establish, for the first time, the presence of midly relativistic outflow emanating from a seemingly ordinary type lc supernova. These discoveries are relevant to the long-standing question of what makes a small fraction of supernova explosions eject material at relativistic speeds. The results appear in the January 28th issue of Nature.
 [01/28/2010]
new UCSC Astronomy Professor Mark Krumholz's work featured prominently
 in an article in  the February issue of  Scientific American. "Cloudy with a chance of stars"
 [01/26/2010] [link]
new A team using NASA's Kepler planet-finding telescope, including UCSC astrophysicist Jonthan Fortney,
 has found two new objects that orbit hot stars. These objects may be a new class of compact, low mass companions. The work will appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, see the link below for a preprint.
 [01/26/2010] [link]
new Astronomy Professor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz featured in this week's
 Good Times Santa Cruz. In the first awards ceremony of its kind, Santa Cruz NEXT honors 4 individuals for their standout creative efforts.
 [01/22/2010] [link]
new UCSC astronomers Garth Illingworth and Rychard Bouwens garnered widespread media coverage
 for their discovery of the most distant galaxies ever observed, including stories in the New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, London Times,  U.S. News & World Report, Santa Cruz Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, Science News,  Nature News, National Geographic News, and an AP wire story. Illingworth was also interviewed on the Patt Morrison Show on Los Angeles NPR affiliate KPCC. [01/12/2010]
new New tidal streams found in Andromeda reveal history of galactic mergers
 UCSC astronomer Puragra Guhathakurta's team presented the latest results from studies of the newly discovered tidal streams on January 7 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C.
 [01/07/2010] [link]
new Hubble reaches "undiscovered country" of primeval galaxies
 Garth Illingworth, UCSC astronomer, leads the survey team that used Hubble's new infrared camera. Some of these early results are being presented by Illingworth and other team members at the January 6 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
 [01/05/2010] [link]
new An international team including UCSC astrophysicist Piero Madau
 has used highly sophisticated hydrodynamical simulations of dwarf galaxies to solve a long-standing discrepancy of the cold dark matter paradigm. The results will appear in the January 14th issue of Nature.
 [01/05/2010] [link]
more