Supported by your supervisor and peers, you will take your research project from the planning stage through the analysis phase all the way to completion, answering a topical scientific question. You will acquire new skills in scientific analysis as well as project management skills, in great demand from employers. Our goal is to solve key problems in modern astrophysics by fostering an environment of the highest quality research and learning. Using a variety of observatories we study the small to the vast – including pulsars, active galactic nuclei, galaxies and cosmology. To find out more about the Group and our research, as well as opportunities to join us through postgraduate studentships or research fellowships, please use the links on the left. We use physics to advance our understanding of the universe and develop technological breakthroughs, with our outstanding teaching programmes and inclusive environment inspiring future generations. For many astrophysicists the travel and international collaborations represents a fantastic opportunity to see the world.

• NGC 7293 — better known as the Helix Nebula — is a planetary nebula roughly 650 light-years distant in Aquarius, the result of a dying star sloughing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel.
• This source of the required excess energy (termed the coronal heating problem) is still not fully determined but it is strongly believed that the magnetic field that threads itself through the solar atmosphere plays a significant role.
• So while you may have been told you were born in Taurus, you actually could have been born in Aries.
• Explore our Cosmology and Astrophysics postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils.

Picking Astrophysics Research Is Simple

During the Middle Ages, the science of astronomy continued to advance in Asia and the Islamic world. Islamic scholars kept building on the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, expanding the catalog introduced by Hipparchus. They also developed new tools for measuring the positions of objects in the sky such as the quadrant and the sextant, according to ESA. At the same time, the two-dimensional constellations that inspired the imagination of early sky-watchers were reduced to an optical illusion, behind which the swirling of galaxies hurtling through spacetime reveals a story that began with the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. For nearly a decade, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has been working to bring together resources through its DigiKits–multimedia collections of vetted high-quality resources for teachers and their students.

Our research includes studies of the dynamical, stellar and star formation properties of low- intermediate- and high-mass galaxies over a wide range of redshifts. You choose what to do, and our experienced researchers help you do it effectively. You don’t have to commit 4 years, as for a PhD (though an MSc by Research can be a great route if you plan to subsequently enter PhD research). Where a PhD typically completes 3-4 projects for their thesis, you will complete 1. You’ll gain all of the benefit that is relevant for employment outside academia. Partly because these objects are hard to find, because they are so compact they look like stars when seen from the ground.

Astronomers or astrophysicists study the universe to help us understand the physical matter and processes in our own solar system and other galaxies. It involves studying large objects, such as planets, as well as tiny particles. They may specialise in a particular area, for example tracking the position and movement of space objects or how galaxies are formed. Durham University is one of the UK’s leading centres for astronomicalresearch with world-class groups working in a wide range of fieldscovering the observational, theoretical and instrumentation aspects ofastronomy. For observational work we use a wide range of facilities worldwide in addition to those we have been involved in building. Locally we operate the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory a few miles outside Cambridge, where we have developed world-class telescopes including the Ryle Telescope, the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) and the Very Small Array. The VSA is a telescope for studying the CMB and was developed jointly with Jodrell Bank and the IAC Tenerife (where it is now located).

Choose That Astrophysics Research Rather Than This Long Tail Astrophysics Research

Our observational research programmes include the study of transient phenomena, the formation and evolution of galaxies, studies of variable stars and supernovae, and the search for extrasolar planets. The School is involved in multiple cutting-edge international observational projects including Swift, NGTS, GOTO, JWST, CTA, XMM-Newton, SVOM, Astrosat, SMILE and Athena. Exoplanets is one of the most rapidly developing fields of astrophysics and Oxford is one of the largest exoplanet research hubs in Europe. This in turn complements our instrumentation development of HARMONI and EPICS for the ELT. We are also leaders in advanced retrieval techniques for extracting atmospheric structure and composition from astronomical observations.

Most of today’s citizens of planet Earth live surrounded by the inescapable glow of modern urban lighting and can hardly imagine the awe-inspiring presence of the pristine star-studded sky that illuminated the nights for ancient tribes and early civilizations. We can guess how drawn our ancestors were to that overwhelming sight from the role that sky-watching played in their lives. In addition to electromagnetic radiation, a few other events originating from great distances may be observed from the Earth. Amateur astronomers have helped with many important discoveries, such as finding new comets. As a result of participation in NASA HEAT, AAPT has produced ten DigiKits, all linked below and available alongside the collection of other tutorials/core resources on the AAPT NASA HEAT page. Although the DigiKits are directed toward teachers, and the lessons are intended for standard classroom contexts, the resources can also be a great introduction to NASA-related concepts and modern science ideas for the general public. The pair’s macabre colours represent a combination of mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible and ultraviolet light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

He had previously dated the paintings Moonrise (Wheat Stacks), Road with Cypress and Star, and White House at Night via this astronomical method, now turned his sights on Lane of Poplars at Sunset after being inspired by the famous New York City “Manhattanhenge” phenomenon. As compelling as the piece is, Starry Night isn’t the only one of van Gogh’s master works to have the eyes of the scientific world trained on it in the hopes of gathering more information about both painting and painter through in-depth analysis. In a research project published as a story in Sky & Telescope Magazine, a team lead by Donald Olson—astronomer and physics professor emeritus at Texas State University—figured out how to use astronomy to discover exactly what location is depicted in van Gogh’s Lane of Poplars at Sunset. The galaxies’ first pass may have also distorted their delicately curved arms, pulling out tidal extensions in several places. The diffuse, tiny spiral arms between IC 2163’s core and its far left arm may be an example of this activity.

Here’s an image of Saturn taken by a powerful space telescope – and you might be able to see it with a binoculars too. Look for potential evidence of their “light scrape” in the shock fronts, where material from the galaxies may have slammed together. These lines, represented in brighter red, including the “eyelids,” may create the appearance of the galaxies’ bulging, vein-like arms. These galaxies have only grazed one another to date, with the smaller spiral on the left, catalogued as IC 2163, ever so slowly “creeping” behind NGC 2207, the spiral galaxy on the right, millions of years ago. Astronomers are about to see deeper into space to observe regions and objects never seen before. The space race of the 1960s culminated with the successful moon landings of the Apollo program.

These resources are toolkits, allowing teachers to pick and choose interesting content to support their instruction. As a partner with the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (HEAT), this work has directly supported the bundling of digital content around heliophysics lessons created by the AAPT team. She’s especially fond of writing about space and physics, and loves sharing the weird wonders of the universe with anyone who wants to listen. The line where the light side meets the dark side of the Moon is called the terminator, and it’s the best place to look for craters. Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television.

As this is a research degree, there are no formal teaching sessions on this programme. However, you’ll Dr James Geach undertake a range of training courses which will contribute to your personal development and enhance your research skills. We combine multi-scale numerical simulations with observational data to advance our knowledge of the Universe. Durham is ranked joint sixth globally for the number of highly cited researchers in Space Science (which covers research into astronomyand astrophysics), according to the Clarivate Analytics Highly CitedResearchers 2018 list. Explore our Cosmology and Astrophysics postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils. We’re detecting cosmic gravitational waves and developing gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool.

Teaching restricts that flexibility somewhat, but it’s a rewarding part of the job as well. There are widely varying quantities of teaching in different astrophysics jobs, but one of the best parts is taking on graduate students and working with them during their PhD. It’s fantastic to see someone bloom as they use new skills to discover new explanations of phenomena in the universe. Typically there are a few more steps in the chain before you get a permanent job. Often people describe these as the most productive times in their scientific careers – the point at which you have the knowledge and skills to do significant research efficiently, but before other responsibilities start taking over.