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Cornell University's Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) was formally inaugurated on April 9 in Chile's Atacama Desert, marking a new era in submillimeter astronomy. The CCAT Observatory partnership telescope, led by Cornell, will map galaxy formation, cosmic microwave background radiation, and the epoch of reionization in the submillimeter range faster than any previous instrument.
Two faculty members in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences have been named to the American Philosophical Society (APS) in honor of extraordinary accomplishments: Martha Haynes in astronomy and Caroline Levine in literature, humanities and climate change.
Cornell University celebrates April 9 inauguration of Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope in Chile. President Michael Kotlikoff marked milestone enabling wide-field submillimeter surveys to study dark energy, early universe conditions, and galaxy evolution.
Since the early days of modern cosmic exploration, Cornell scientists have led the way, from guiding rovers through the red dust of Mars to searching for other life in the universe; and from modeling exotic stars to detecting the faint ripples of gravitational waves.
Cornell’s Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility (SPIF), which manages print and online images taken by NASA missions, supports astronomy research and conducts dozens of outreach events every year.
Robert John Sullivan, Jr., one of the world’s foremost authorities on aeolian processes -- how wind can carve and change a landscape -- died Feb. 15 in Ithaca.
Ho is one of 24 early career scholars to receive $120,000 for proposals incorporating research and science education.
When two black holes merge, the collision rings like a bell, emitting specific tones characterized by two numbers.
Thanks to this innovation, scientists have discovered new radio bursts originating from dwarf stars and possibly from exoplanets.
Tasked with studying exoplanet systems around small stars, the refrigerator-sized satellite is the first in NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program – small-scale missions designed to train early-career scientists, including Trevor Foote, Ph.D. ’24, a former member of the research group led by faculty member Nikole Lewis.
With the 2026 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, the American Astronomical Society recognizes Anna Y. Q. Ho’s pioneering investigations of extreme explosions powered by stellar death.
Behind a world-leading telescope bound for Chile is a team of engineers, machinists, electronics specialists and riggers at Cornell. Meet the specialized staff whose expertise is helping push cosmology to new frontiers.
These simulations, developed with significant input from Cornell researchers using code written at Cornell, help scientists analyze gravitational waves observed by the LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA detectors located in the U.S., Italy and Japan.
The LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA team has announced a black hole merger similar to its first detection; a decade’s worth of technological advances allow unprecedented tests of General Relativity to be performed.
“It’s the cutting edge of what we can achieve, with better precisions and resolutions than other instruments.”
The first major component of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) has arrived at its final home: the Cerro Chajnantor mountaintop.
The new results confirm a simple model of the universe and have ruled out a majority of competing alternatives, says the research team.
Ho’s project will look at supermassive black holes residing in the centers of distant galaxies.
”This is a huge milestone for the project and we wish FYST bon voyage,” said Gordon Stacey, the project’s director and the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences.
“We are going to run the largest simulations of the magnetized gas that pervades the space between stars, with the aim of understanding a crucial missing piece in our models for how stars and galaxies form."
A&S staff member Lynda Sovocool, interim associate director/department manager for Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, received the Mission-Possible Award, for supporting the university’s core mission to learning, discovery and engagement.
Cornell scientists are developing a library of basalt-based spectral signatures that not only will help reveal the composition of planets outside of our solar system, but also could demonstrate evidence of water on those exoplanets.
Jupiter’s moon Europa may have conditions that could support life. To find out, NASA has launched its next flagship science mission, Europa Clipper, and Cornell scientists will play a role.
The fellowship from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation includes $875,000 in unrestricted funds to be used for research over five years.
"The Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) has awarded Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger the Polar Star Award – the Austrian Space Prize. Gernot Grömer, Director of the Austrian Space Forum awards presented Dr Kaltenegger with the award at a ceremony on Monday 23 September."
By examining Jupiter’s moon Io – the most volcanically active place in the solar system – Cornell astronomers can study a vital process in planetary formation and evolution: tidal heating.
Reported in Universe Today, "a team of astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) announced the discovery of six rogue planet candidates in an unlikely spot. The planets, which include the lightest rogue planet ever identified (with a debris disk around it), were spotted during Webb‘s deepest survey of the young nebula NGC 1333, a star-forming cluster about a thousand light-years away in the Perseus constellation. These planets could teach astronomers a great deal about the formation process of stars and planets. The team was led by Adam Langeveld, an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)" and Visiting Scholar at Cornell's Department of Astronomy.
Using data from precision radar experiments, a Cornell-led research team analyzed and estimated the composition and roughness of sea surfaces on Titan.
The new Simons Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert may soon answer the great scientific question of what happened in the tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
Cornell researchers have provided a simple and comprehensive – if less dramatic – explanation for bright radar reflections initially interpreted as liquid water beneath the ice cap on Mars’ south pole.
As chief scientist, Lunine will guide the laboratory’s scientific research and development efforts, drive innovation across JPL’s missions and programs and enhance collaborations with NASA Headquarters, NASA centers, the California Institute of Technology, academia, the science community, government agencies and industry partners.
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
The newly assembled Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), nearly the size of a five-story building, was unveiled April 4 at an event in Xanten, Germany.
Samples of Martian rock and soil could be stranded if Congress doesn't adequately fund a NASA mission to retrieve them, Astronomy Chair Jonathan Lunine told a U.S. House subcommittee on March 21.
Clues about our planet’s ability to support life might come from Mars – yet political storms that have hit Washington, DC, threaten to leave valuable samples stranded on Mars.
The research shows how changes in salinity may affect life in aquatic habitats on Earth and widens the possibilities for where life may be found throughout our solar system.
This "study emphasizes new directions for future missions to measure habitability on other worlds, using Saturn's icy moon Enceladus as a primary example."
The bright, brief flashes – as short as a few minutes in duration, and as powerful as the original explosion 100 days later – appeared in the aftermath of a rare type of stellar cataclysm.
Telescopes could better detect potential chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet more closely resembling the age the dinosaurs inhabited than the one we know today, Cornell astronomers find.
Crevasses play an important role in circulating seawater beneath Antarctic ice shelves, potentially influencing their stability, finds Cornell-led research based on first-of-its-kind exploration by an underwater robot.
An interdisciplinary group of researchers has identified a missing aspect of Darwin's theory that applies to essentially everything.
The quartz crystals are only about 10 nanometers across (one-millionth of one centimeter), so small that 10,000 could fit side-by-side across a human hair.
The new camera "is actually a very different way of observing the sky,” said A&S research scientist Amit Vishwas ’10, M.Eng.,’14, Ph.D. ’19.
The Brinson Prize supports postdoctoral scholars in carrying out novel research in observational cosmology.
Astronomers using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified carbon dioxide on the icy surface of Europa – one of a handful of worlds in our solar system that could potentially harbor conditions suitable for life.
A&S Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysical and Planetary Science (C-CAPS) faculty are key to “Thriving in Space,” released Sept. 12.
Researchers have discovered a molecule that could determine the temperature and other characteristics in exoplanets.
A Cornell astronomer who is part of JWST’s Early Release Science program report the first detection of hydrogen peroxide on Ganymede and sulfurous fumes on Io, both the result of Jupiter’s domineering influence.
“This was a critical meeting as we are less than two years out from anticipated first light with the facility," said project director Gordon Stacey.
A 15-year collaboration in which Cornell astrophysicists have played leading roles has found the first evidence of gravitational waves slowly undulating through the galaxy.