Department News

  • In Memoriam Jack Welch

    March 15, 2024

    It is with sadness that we note the death of Professor W.J. (Jack) Welch on March 10, 2024.  Jack held appointments in both the Astronomy and Electrical Engineering departments and was a leader in the field of radio astronomy. In the late 1960's Jack and Charles Townes made the first detections of ammonia  and water in interstellar space, using a radio telescope at the University of California's Hat Creek Radio Observatory.  This seminal discovery triggered the detections of dozens of additional interstellar molecules by astronomers, enabled detailed studies of star formation in interstellar clouds, and launched the field of astrochemistry.…

    More
  • Webb telescope discovers intense jet stream in Jupiter’s atmosphere

    October 19, 2023

    University of California, Berkeley astronomers are part of a team that used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to discover a fast-moving jet stream in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Read More

    More
  • Closest supernova in a decade reveals how exploding stars evolve

    August 29, 2023

    Several groups of University of California, Berkeley astronomers aimed telescopes at SN 2023ixf to capture data that advances our understanding of how exploding stars evolve. Read More...

    More
  • Hundred-year storms? That’s how long they last on Saturn.

    August 11, 2023

    A new study conducted by astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, shows that Saturn has long-lasting megastorms with impacts deep in the atmosphere that persist for centuries. Read More...

    More
  • James Webb Space Telescope sees Jupiter moons in a new light

    July 27, 2023

    University of California, Berkeley astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to reveal new details of Jupiter's moon, Io. Read More...

    More
  • When ET calls, can we be sure we’re not being spoofed?

    July 24, 2023

    University of California, Berkeley scientists are part of a team that has devised a new technique for finding and vetting possible radio signals from other civilizations in our galaxy — a major advance in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that will significantly boost confidence in any future detection of alien life. Read More...

    More
  • After 15 years, pulsar timing yields evidence of cosmic gravitational wave background

    June 29, 2023

    University of California, Berkeley Astronomy research groups lead by Professor Chung-Pei Ma and Assistant Adjunct Professor Luke Zoltan Kelley have just published papers supporting the widespread conclusion that the universe is full of low frequency gravitational waves. Read More...

    More
  • UC Berkeley Astronomy Honors the Lives of Two Former Faculty: Leo Blitz and Frank Shu

    May 19, 2023

    In Memoriam Leo Blitz University of California, Berkeley Professor of Astronomy 1981-2022 Leo Blitz passed away on Dec 20, 2022.       Obituary for Leo Blitz Memorial Site for Leo Blitz: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/wwZyag8O In Memoriam Frank Shu University of California, Berkeley Professor of Astronomy 1973-2002 Frank Shu passed away on April 22, 2023.       Obituary for Frank Shu http://memorial.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/frankshu/msg4news.html Memorial Site for Frank Shu http://memorial.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/frankshu/wall.html

    More
  • M87 in 3D: New view of galaxy helps pin down mass of the black hole at its core

    April 17, 2023

    A new, highly detailed analysis of the motion of stars in the giant elliptical galaxy M87 has been used to determine the mass of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. Read More...

    More
  • Bright gamma ray burst confounds models of black hole birth

    March 28, 2023

    Last October, following one of the brightest flashes of gamma rays ever observed in the sky, telescopes around the world captured a wealth of data from an event that is thought to herald the collapse of a massive star and the birth of a black hole. Raffaella Margutti, associate professor of astronomy and of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, notes that the data demonstrated that our models of such events are woefully inadequate. Read More...

    More