Astronomy

Billy Teets, director and resident astronomer for Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, will lead a discussion of the history of the Voyager spacecraft—including their engineering, major discoveries and what they are up to today. The virtual event will be at 7 p.m. CT on Thursday, March 25. Read More

Vanderbilt astronomers have painted their best picture yet of an RV Tauri variable—a rare type of stellar binary—by mining a 130-year-old dataset that spans the widest range of light yet collected for one of these systems, from radio waves to X-rays. Read More

Thanks to her passion for astronomy, as well as mentoring from faculty, undergraduate Samantha Bianco is both a named co-author on a graduate-level scientific research paper and the first Vanderbilt student officially to have completed an Immersion Vanderbilt project. Read More

Through a partnership with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Vanderbilt astronomers use big data to see the cosmos as a stop-motion movie instead of a snapshot. Read More

Learn how federal policy shapes space exploration, observe a once-in-a-lifetime planetary conjunction and more this month with Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. Read More

Take a guided tour of the autumn skies during a star party led by Billy Teets, acting director and outreach astronomer for Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. Stargaze on Saturday, Nov. 14, and learn how to buy a home telescope from a Vanderbilt astronomer on Thursday, Nov. 19. Read More

The intermediate-mass black hole first observed in May 2019 presents an entirely new category of black hole. Read More

Following the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, Vanderbilt astronomer Keivan Stassun leads the next phase of discovery to find atmospheres like our own. Read More

New research led by Vanderbilt astrophysicist Karan Jani presents a compelling roadmap for capturing intermediate-mass black hole activity. Read More

A groundbreaking study, using data from NASA and a technique pioneered by a Vanderbilt professor, is giving humankind a glimpse at a distant exoplanet with a size similar to Earth and a surface which may resemble Mercury or Earth’s Moon. Located nearly 49 light-years from Earth, the planet known… Read More

Vanderbilt University astrophysicist Keivan Stassun, Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, was named Tuesday to the National Academies’ Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics (Astro2020) Steering Committee. Read More

Before we go further and send humans to Mars, we need to know if doing so could trigger the extinction of existing life on the planet, writes Professor of Astronomy David Weintraub. Read More

Alexandra Doten’s passion for blending science, education and outreach was born from a failure. Doten took an astronomy class her first semester freshman year and failed the first test. But with encouragement from a professor, she turned the experience into a lesson in perseverance. Read More

We can go to Mars—soon. But should we? Astronomy Professor David Weintraub asks the ethical questions in his new book, "Life on Mars: What to Know Before We Go." Read More

Vanderbilt’s Keivan Stassun serves as a deputy principal investigator on the mission and is tasked with identifying the most promising stars to target in its search for habitable nearby planets. Read More

The newly discovered planets appear to have too much water to sustain life but provide hints at what sorts of planets might do so. Read More

Astrophysicist Keivan Stassun has been named mentor of the year by AAAS for his efforts in increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in STEM Ph.D. programs. Read More

New clues to Alzheimer's disease, helping kids deal with stress, understanding why our universe is three-dimensional and—of course—electric eels all appear in this year's look back on the research stories that were visited the most frequently on Vanderbilt's website in 2017. Read More

Astronomers have come up with a new and improved method for measuring the masses of millions of solitary stars, especially those with planetary systems. Read More

Vanderbilt astronomers will carry out detailed studies of nearby stars orbited by planets with the potential to harbor or sustain life. Read More