The high velocity tail of the total velocity distribution of stars provides essential insight into fundamental properties of the Galaxy.

Promotor: K.H. Kuijken

The Sun and all the stars in the night sky reside in the Milky Way galaxy. In the at-rest reference frame of the Galaxy, typical stars travel with velocities of about 100-200 kilometres per second.

Isabel van Vledder and Dieuwertje van der Vlugt, 2 astronomy students from Leiden University, have mapped the entire Milky Way galaxy in dwarf stars for the first time. This result is the most comprehensive model ever for the distribution of these stars. The findings appear in a new paper in Monthly…

Astronomers in Leiden have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile to produce a new detailed image of the centre of our Milky Way. This allows them to investigate the life of stars in the most extreme region of our galaxy. The Leiden scientists, led by Katarzyna…

For centuries astronomers studied the Universe by collecting light. Nowadays, we are living in times of great technological advancements, which allow us to explore our Universe in a new way - though gravitational wave radiation.

Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown had the honour to give the prestigious Spitzer Lectures at Princeton University. In five lectures spread over the beginning of May, he gave an insight into the Gaia Mission. ‘One of the intellectual highlights of the year.’

Over a seven year period an international team of scientists has mapped more than a quarter of the northern sky using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a pan-European radio telescope. From Leiden, Astronomer Timothy Shimwell and Huub Röttgering, among others, are involved. It reveals an astonishingly…

Astronomers who simulate galaxies do not always get the same result, even when they start from identical conditions. New research from Leiden University shows that this is not a flaw, but a consequence of how galaxies behave — and how they are modelled.

A team of Leiden astronomers used the latest set of data from ESA’s Gaia mission to look for high-velocity stars being kicked out of the Milky Way, but were surprised to find stars instead sprinting inwards – perhaps from another galaxy.

The Leiden astronomer Huib van Langevelde) has been selected as the new director of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The EHT is a collaboration involving about 350 scientists from 18 countries. It combines the ALMA array in Chile with sub-millimeter telescopes around the world and published the first…

Dwarf satellite galaxies in the Milky Way perform different dances than researchers initially expected. Marius Cautun from Durham University received a Marie Curie grant to unravel the mysteries of this orbital dance. October 1st 2018 he will start his research at the Leiden Observatory.

With the help of software that mimics a human brain, ESA’s Gaia satellite spotted six stars zipping at high speed from the centre of our Galaxy to its outskirts. This could provide key information about some of the most obscure regions of the Milky Way.