Department News

  • Assistant Professor Courtney Dressing is Awarded Sloan Research Fellowship

    February 20, 2019

    Seven assistant professors from the fields of astronomy, biology, computer science, economics and statistics have been named 2019 Sloan Research Fellows. This year’s UC Berkeley recipients are Courtney Dressing, Shirshendu Ganguly, Moritz Hardt, Sergey Levine, Priya Moorjani, Philipp Strack and Gabriel Zucman.

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  • HIGH-ENERGY ASTROPHYSICS DIVISION ANNOUNCES 2019 AWARD WINNERS

    February 12, 2019

    The High-Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society has selected the winners for its top prizes for the upcoming year. The 2019 Rossi Prize has been awarded to Brian Metzger of Columbia University and Daniel Kasen of the University of California at Berkeley for their theoretical predictions of electromagnetic emission from radioactive nuclei produced in neutron star mergers. These predictions were confirmed by observations of the 2017 neutron star merger gravitational wave event, providing the first compelling evidence for the astrophysical site of rapid neutron capture nucleosynthesis. Jennifer Barnes of Columbia University has been awarded the 2019 HEAD Dissertation prize for her dissertation entitled "Radiation Transport Modeling of Kilonovae and Broad-Lined Ic Supernovae." This work also involves gravitational waves. It established the radiative signatures of mergers between two neutron stars or a neutron star and black hole, as well as the radiative signatures of jet-driven supernovae produced by collapsing massive stars. The prize includes a certificate and a $1,000 award.

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  • Young astronomer honored for research on smallest galaxies in the universe

    January 8, 2019

    Daniel Weisz, an assistant professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley, was honored at this week’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society for his early-career research on relatively nearby “dwarf” galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope. He received the 2019 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize “for his transformational work on the star-formation histories of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group, our galactic neighborhood.” Weisz came to UC Berkeley in the summer of 2016 and focuses on stars, dark matter and galaxies near Earth, in particular the Local Group of galaxies that includes some 100 mostly small galaxies surrounding the two heavies, our own Milky Way and Andromeda.

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  • Tracking down a star that disappeared 65 million years ago

    November 21, 2018

    Astronomers may finally have tracked down the type of star that explodes with a distinctive but unusual signature: They show no evidence of hydrogen and helium, by far the most abundant elements in the universe. Such explosions have been labeled Type Ic supernovae, and make up some 20 percent of all stars that explode when their cores collapse. Most, however, have been observed at such large distances that astronomers could not pinpoint what was there before the explosion blew it to smithereens. But a team that included UC Berkeley astronomer Alex Filippenko got lucky.

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  • What magnetic fields can tell us about life on other planets

    November 21, 2018

    Every school kid knows that Earth has a magnetic field – it’s what makes compasses align north-south and lets us navigate the oceans. It also protects the atmosphere, and thus life, from the sun’s powerful wind. But what about other Earth-like planets in the galaxy? Do they also have magnetic fields to protect emerging life? A new analysis looks at one type of exoplanet – super-Earths up to five times the size of our own planet – and concludes that they probably do have a magnetic field, but one generated in a totally novel way: by the planets’ magma oceans.

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  • Classes cancelled 11/16

    November 15, 2018

    Dear Campus Community, I am writing to update you on the latest air quality readings, decisions regarding tomorrow’s class schedule, and the status of Saturday’s Big Game. As noted in previous messages, we have been closely tracking current air quality data, as well as forecasts for Berkeley. As of 3pm today the reading for the closest monitor, located in Aquatic Park, indicates that the Air Quality Index (AQI) surpassed 200, the level at which our guidelines require consideration of class cancellations. In addition, the forecast for tomorrow from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District now indicates that conditions are expected to deteriorate. In that context, and based on the guidance of experts on campus, we must assume that the 200 AQI threshold will be exceeded tomorrow. As a result, we have decided to cancel all classes for the remainder of the day today, and on Friday. While the campus is now essentially closed, there are a limited number of campus operations that must continue. They include University Health Services, dining halls and residential facilities, the optometry clinic, UCPD, OLAC, and the Office of Environment, Health & Safety. This is not a comprehensive list. Staff members who are uncertain about whether their duties can be filled from home, or have other questions should consult with their supervisors.

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  • UC Berkeley graduate student awarded Department of Energy fellowship

    September 14, 2018

    James Sullivan, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) to support his research into Astrophysics. Sullivan, from McLean, VA, has bachelor’s degrees in Astronomy, Mathematics, and Physics from the University of Texas at Austin. Fewer than 6 percent of applicants are chosen for the fellowship each year.

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  • AI helps track down mysterious cosmic radio bursts

    September 10, 2018

    Artificial intelligence is invading many fields, most recently astronomy and the search for intelligent life in the universe, or SETI. Researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a SETI project led by the University of California, Berkeley, have now used machine learning to discover 72 new fast radio bursts from a mysterious source some 3 billion light years from Earth.

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  • Astronomy Congratulates Professor Eliot Quataert on being elected to the AAAS

    April 19, 2018

    The 1780 Charter of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences states that purpose of the Academy is "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." AAAS Members have included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Maria Mitchell, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Aaron Copland, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Mary Leakey, Akira Kurosawa, and Nelson Mandela (to name a few). Nine UC Berkeley faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a time-honored, prestigious society that convenes leaders in academic, business and government sectors to solve critical national and global challenges.   

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  • Flash-in-the-pan supernovas explained

    March 27, 2018

    Most exploding stars flare brightly and then slowly fade over weeks to months, but an unusual group of supernovas noticed only in the last 10 years flare up and disappear within days. Thanks to the ability of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope to precisely measure starlight over long periods of time, astronomers now have a pretty good idea what these flash-in-the-pan supernovas are: exploding stars probably too dim to be detectable until the stellar matter ejected during the explosion collides with a shell of material puffed off years earlier by the star.

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