Physics

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

Read about recent faculty and student awards, appointments and achievements. Read More

Vanderbilt University physicists developed detailed quantum mechanical simulations that accurately predict the outcomes of various additive combinations in water used for enhanced oil recovery. 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

Vanderbilt scientists have teamed up with the Italian Scientific Police to apply nanoscience techniques to improve the accuracy of forensic investigations. Read More

Filling the universe with knots shortly after it popped into existence 13.8 billion years ago provides a neat explanation for why we inhabit a three-dimensional world. That is the basic idea advanced by an out-of-the-box theory developed by an international team of physicists. Read More

A new exhibit on display at the Wond'ry honors the discoveries of Vanderbilt's Nobel laureates by translating them into beautiful works of art. Read More

Vanderbilt scientists have taken an important step toward understanding the way in which injured cells trigger wound healing, an insight essential for improving treatments of all types of wounds. Read More

A high-altitude weather balloon rose yesterday from a Vanderbilt garage rooftop to the edge of space to live-stream the eclipse from above Nashville and record the temporary atmospheric changes it caused. Read More

Miranda Pepin, an Arts and Science rising senior, performs two roles in the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's double feature, "The Winter's Tale" and "Antony and Cleopatra," at Centennial Park. Read More

Astronomers from Vanderbilt, Lehigh and Ohio State universities have discovered a “puffy planet" with the density of Styrofoam that is an excellent test-bed for probing exoplanets for signs of life. Read More

Zina Jarrahi Cinker, a visiting scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, will serve as executive director of the newly established National Graphene Association. Read More

After hours of thinking about theoretical physics, senior Zachary Bednarke relaxes by playing his trumpet. While running through scales on the instrument, he is also, technically, still doing schoolwork. Read More

Vanderbilt students Lauren Branscombe, Joshua Fleck and David Zhang have been recognized in this year’s Goldwater Scholars competition. They are among a group of 240 scholars selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,286 mathematics, science and engineering students nationwide. Read More

On March 27, Tennessee state Sen. Ken Yager presented a resolution commending physicists from Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville for discovering a new element and naming it tennessine. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have developed a new method for duplicating DNA that makes devices small enough to hold in your hand that are capable of identifying infectious agents before symptoms appear. Read More

Astronomers participating in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have announced the results of the first study that shows how the abundance of the "elements of life" varies across the Milky Way galaxy. Read More

Artificial kidneys, gay-straight alliances and junkyard batteries captured readers' attention in 2016. Read More

Expect the unexpected when you walk into Kit Parker’s biophysics lab at Harvard. From cuttlefish skin camouflage to cotton candy machines used for wound dressings, his science is anything but ordinary. In fact, the young scientists inside are just as likely to be playing with crayons to visualize solutions… Read More