Floor Broekgaarden (Astronomy, PhD, 2023) was awarded the Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics by the APS. This award recognizes doctoral thesis in research in astrophysics, and encourages effective written and oral presentation of research results. The annual award consists of $1,500 for the recipient, a certificate, registration waiver, and all finalists will receive a travel reimbursement up to $750 in order to present their work in an invited session at the APS April Meeting.

Floor defended her thesis "Gravitational-Wave Paleontology: A New...

Read more about Floor Broekgaarden (Astronomy, PhD, 2023) wins Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics

 

 A few years ago, astronomers uncovered an enormous secret: A wave-shaped chain of gaseous clouds in our sun’s backyard, giving birth to clusters of stars along the spiral arm of the Milky Way.

Having named this new structure the “Radcliffe Wave” in honor of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where the undulation was discovered, the team now reports in Nature...

Read more about Astronomers detail oscillation of our giant neighbor

Astronomy grad student Claire Lamman has been named a 2024 Harvard Horizons Scholar.

Harvard Griffin GSAS is pleased to announce the 2024 Harvard Horizons Scholars, who have been selected by the Harvard Horizons Faculty Fellows as representatives of the extraordinary researchers who make up Harvard’s PhD community. These eight students form the eleventh class of the Society of Horizons Scholars, a fellowship cohort that offers opportunities for long-lasting community, mentorship...

Read more about Astronomy grad student Claire Lamman named a 2024 Harvard Horizons Scholar

Ashley Villar has been awarded an Aramont Fellowship to develop a "foundation model" (a large machine learning model) for understanding transient phenomena in the era of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. A description of the Fellowship and projects can be found ... Read more about Professor Ashley Villar awarded Aramont Fellowship

Congratulations to Grad Student Emily Pass, who won the Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize at the AAS 243: https://aas.org/rodger-doxsey-travel-prize-winners

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Read more about Grad Student Emily Pass wins Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize at the AAS 243

The AAS announced the ...

Read more about Harvard Students win Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award!!

Upon his retirement in 2000 after a 40 year-long career, Harvard professor Owen J. Gingerich had, with astronomer David W. Latham, taught the longest-running Harvard course under continuous leadership. He died on May 28, 2023 at the age of 93.

Read the Crimson obituary.

Read more about Astronomer Owen Gingerich, Defender of Pluto and Scientist With Spirituality, Dies at 93

The Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will present the Centennial Medal to six distinguished alumni on May 24, 2023, culminating a year of celebration of the School’s 150th anniversary. The Centennial Medal, which recognizes those who have made fundamental and lasting contributions to knowledge, their disciplines, their colleagues, and society, is the highest honor that the Harvard Griffin GSAS bestows.

 

Catherine Cesarsky, PhD ’71, Astronomy

Catherine Cesarsky’s trailblazing achievements in astronomy are...

Read more about Harvard Astronomy Alum Catherine Cesarsky (PhD ’71) to receive Centennial Medal

Congratulations to the 2023 FAS Hoopes Prize winners for best senior theses:

Brian Hsu, working with Edo Berger

Maya Skarbinski, working with Daniel Eisenstein

 

 

 

Streamlining the Search for Black Holes

https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/streamlining-search-black-holes

Read more about Horizons scholar Floor Broekgaarden brings data science to the study of stars

Life in the Cosmos

"We do not yet know how life first formed on earth, but no scientist argues that it can never be explained in material terms.  How prevalent is life throughout the universe?  We now know that there are likely even more planets than there are stars.  So, is life in the cosmos prevalent or rare?  Either answer yields profound implications."

https://www....

Read more about Fine-Tuning in Cosmology, Interview Series

"The rate of growth of new technologies is often proportional to past knowledge, leading to an exponential advance over time. This explosive process implies that very quickly after a civilization reaches technological maturity, it will develop the means for its own destruction through climate change, for example, or nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Developments of this type, over mere hundreds of years, would appear abrupt in the cosmic perspective of billions of years. If such self-destruction is common, this could explain Fermi’s paradox, which asks “where is everybody?”—and...

Read more about How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations If they’re short-lived, we might be able to detect the relics and artifacts they left behind

"Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) --- powered by supermassive black holes at the centers of most young galaxies --- may have put the quash on life’s evolution, says one new study."

Read More: ...

Read more about Active Supermassive Black Holes May Have Quashed Life's Emergence

"Hundreds of astronomy enthusiasts filled every available seat to listen to Astronomy Department Chair Abraham “Avi” Loeb describe recent innovations in the search for life beyond our solar system."

Read More: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/9/24/breakthrough-starshot/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=6ckgBxRASTo

Read more about Video: Why The Universe May Be Full Of Alien Civilizations featuring department Chair, Avi Loeb