805 search results for “black holes” in the Public website
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Black Pete debate
On 3 December the Europa Institute organised a debate about the figure of Black Pete. The central theme of the debate was the role which the law can play in deciding the future of Black Pete.
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‘Scientists should be careful when interpreting results of AI models’
Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.
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Prominent physicist Maldacena gives Ehrenfest Colloquium
On November 21, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena gives the Ehrenfest Colloquium. Maldacena is known worldwide as the inventor of AdS/CFT correspondence, which might be key to a theory of quantum gravity. Maldacena is winner of the prestigious Dirac Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental…
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Sjoert van Velzen receives Vidi grant to solve 'riddles from the universe'
Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.
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A new window on the Universe
Rottgering
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School programmes
The Old Obervatory Leiden is one of the partners of the local learning ecosystem ‘Verwonder om de Hoek’, an educational platform from Leiden that lets school children and families wonder about the world of Nature, Science, Technology and Sustainability. On this page you will find the educational programmes…
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A piece of the Universe in the computer
Simulations of galaxies help researchers understand astronomical observations better. The EAGLE simulation, a large project in which Leiden astronomers play a leading role, shows the evolution of the Universe, from just after the Big Bang to the present day.
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Catching stars to reveal the secrets of the darkness: ERC Consolidator for Elena Maria Rossi
The centre of our Galaxy is so dark and dense that it is almost impossible to observe what is inside. By catching the rare hypervelocity stars that are ejected from it, Elena Maria Rossi aims to unveil the mysterious environment around the supermassive black hole inside. But she’ll also be solving another…
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Why are plants not black?
All kinds of reasons have been put forward for why plants apparently fail to make maximum use of the available light. None of these reasons can explain why after two billion years of evolution they are not black, like industrial photovoltaic solar cells. Are we missing something?
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And the winner is… Results of the annual physics image competition
Salt crystals, a nano-sized golf stick and molten glass. The LION Image Award competition of 2023 yielded a lot of beautiful images once again. But in the end, only one can be the winner.
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Astronomers discover furthest radio galaxy ever
After almost twenty years the record for the most distant radio galaxy has been broken. A team of astronomers led by Leiden PhD candidate Aayush Saxena has discovered a radio galaxy from the time when the universe was just one billion years old. The galaxy is at a distance of 12 billion light years…
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Young children associate Black Pete more with clowns than with black people
Older children more frequently link Black Pete with a black person. Both younger and older children think positively about him. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by Judi Mesman, Professor of Diversity in Parenting and Development.
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Most detailed galaxy photos yet are world news
Media all around the world reported about it: the most detailed images yet seen of galaxies, shot by radio telescope LOFAR. The international team behind these amazing results were led by Leah Morabito at Durham University and included three talented Leiden astronomers.
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Two Marie Curie Grants for Leiden theorists
Theoretical physicists Kevin Grosvenor and Sam Young have won Marie Curie grants for research projects at LION/Lorentz Institute.
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Research on Jordan's Black Desert covered in the media
The faculty's research on the ancient rock art found in Jordan's Black Desert has recently been covered by several news and science websites.
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Astronomers find largest radio galaxy ever
By a stroke of luck, a team led by Dutch PhD student Martijn Oei has discovered a radio galaxy of at least 16 million lightyears long. The pair of plasma plumes is the largest structure made by a galaxy known thus far. The finding disproves some long-kept hypotheses about the growth of radio galaxie…
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Discovering new physics in extremely bright neutron stars
Astronomer Alexander Mushtukov, currently working at the University of Amsterdam, received a Veni grant of 250,000 euro’s which he will execute in Leiden. Supervised by Simon Portegies Zwart, Mushtukov will use advanced simulations to understand the unknown physics in extremely bright neutron stars.
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Data Science
The ability to collect and interpret huge quantities of data has become indispensable to society and academia. Leiden University is a knowledge and expertise centre for data science that places the emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
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Exploring the Universe
Astronomers want to understand the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day, and what the future will hold. In Leiden they focus on two key questions: ‘How did stars and planets originate’ and ‘How were galaxies and black holes formed in the young Universe?’ A new generation of telescopes – just…
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New detection method for quasars in the early Universe
Astronomers from Leiden Observatory have developed a new method to find distant quasars and better distinguish them from other objects that look like them, using machine learning techniques. The research result has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. It is the last…
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Flurry of new discoveries as incredible new image revealing 4.4 million galaxies is made public
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…
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Black Theatre alive and kicking in South Africa
Black Theatre, activist theatre by and for black South Africans, flourished under apartheid. However, according to Francis Rangoajane, the democratisation of South Africa has in no way diminished the importance of this art form. PhD defence 16 November.
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Karwan Fatah-Black joins The Young Academy
Historian Karwan Fatah-Black researches the Dutch colonial past, and regularly joins in the public debate about this. He has been admitted to The Young Academy for his dedication to academia and society.
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In Support of Black Lives Matter
The worldwide protests following the police violence in the United States show how deep-rooted and wide-spread racism is across the world. As an academic institution doing research on law & society, the Van Vollenhoven Institute is very much aware of systemic racism and speaks out in support of these…
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All the Einsteins: pop-up exhibition at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…
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First discovery of high-energy neutrino source
For the first time, scientists have traced back a high-energy neutrino to its source in space. It was produced by a so-called blazar—a supermassive black hole. Researchers from neutrino detector IceCube report this in Science. ‘This is a milestone for neutrino science,’ says physicist Dorothea Samtleben…
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Composition by Aart Strootman awarded Black Pencil in Schokland Prize
The composition Popular Archeology: Volca #1 (for percussion) by composer and ACPA PhD researcher Aart Strootman, has been awarded the Black Pencil in Schokland Prize.
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‘We’re a spaceship with limited supplies’
From the discovery of exoplanets to the hunt for extraterrestrial life. At the Astronomy Gala on 17 December in the concert hall in Leiden, astronomers looked back, but above all ahead. With King Willem-Alexander as guest of honour.
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‘Family situations are never black and white’
She bridges the gap between research and practice, has excellent research skills and is pleasant to work with: these words of praise were lavished on Sabine van der Asdonk (29) when she won the Gratama Science Prize 2021 in June. In this interview she explains more about her research into vulnerable…
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Black Lives Matter - New network of Dutch museums
How are people of color represented in art collections? And do young people of color feel that museum collections reflect their norms and values? Developmental psychologist Carolien Rieffe is invited to serve on the Expert Group ‘Musea bekennen kleur’ because of her knowledge of children and young p…
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Gaia spots stars flying between galaxies
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.
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Start of construction of camera for European giant telescope
Leiden scientists will be working on the development of a camera for the European Extremely Large Telescope that is currently under construction. On 28 September the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy signed an agreement with the European Southern Observatory.
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Crucial Dutch contribution to European X-ray telescope
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO allocates nearly € 19.5 million to a Dutch cluster that contributes to the development of an X-ray camera and spectrograph for the new European space telescope Athena. Leiden Observatory is one of the members of the cluster.
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VICI grants for five Leiden researchers
Research organisation NWO has awarded a VICI grant to five Leiden researchers. In total, 32 leading researchers in the Netherlands have been awarded a VICI grant.
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Self-learning machines for better understanding of the universe
Bright explosions appear all over the radio and gravitational-wave sky. This dynamic side of the universe which has just been discovered, can be mapped by self-learning machines. The National Science Agenda granted 5 million euro’s to CORTEX, the Center for Optimal, Real-Time Machine Studies of the…
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Space mission for gravitational waves gets green light
The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the proposal for gravitational wave detector LISA. The launch for the space detector is planned in 2034. ‘A dream that comes true,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi.
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To the edge of space and time
Large telescopes can look so deep into the Universe that they can also look back billions of years in time. From 2018, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to see the period just after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies formed. Astronomers…
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Awards and Grants 2024
On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2024, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.
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NWO Projectruimte for physicists Schalm and Zaanen
NWO has awarded a €392k Projectruimte grant to physicists Koenraad Schalm and Jan Zaanen to study ‘strange metals’. These materials are alleged to follow the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics even at everyday length scales.
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'Stephen Hawking put abstract science on the map'
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (76) passed away on 14 March at his home in Cambridge, having been a long-term sufferer of the muscular disease ALS. A number of Leiden scientists look back at the life and scientific career of this world-famous physicist. 'He was very approachable and extremely…
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BlackGEM telescopes begin hunt for gravitational-wave sources
Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern sky to hunt for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes. Leiden astronomer Rudolf le Poole is…
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Clashing galaxy clusters and extreme energies
A galaxy is already incredibly large, but it can get even bigger. Astronomer Reinout van Weeren investigates clusters of galaxies, one of the largest structures in the universe. For his research into the origins and evolution of these clusters, he obtained an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros.…
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‘American’ Black Power movement was also active in the Kingdom of the Netherlands
In the 60s and 70s, Black Power groups were also active in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This is what PhD candidate Debby Esmeé de Vlugt has discovered.
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The spin evolution of accreting and radio pulsars in binary systems
Pulsars were first discovered in 1967 and since then the population has grown and expanded over several wavelengths.
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Black lives matter: ‘Why the American protests have resonated in the Netherlands’
The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police may have sparked the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and here in the Netherlands, but they are about more than that alone. We asked Karwan Fatah-Black, a historian who specialises in the Dutch colonial history, for his analysis. ‘We…
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Geert-Jan Kroes
Science
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The most read stories of 2021 from Leiden University
Research into depression in children, Leiden alumni in the Dutch House of Representatives and an exceptional achievement by one of our students: what do this topics have in common? They are among our most read stories of 2021.
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Fascinating orbits
Adrian Hamers is researching the way in which celestial bodies orbit each other, now and in the future. This often turns out to be more erratic than you might think. He will defend his PhD dissertation on 21 June.
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Black lives matter: ‘Racism takes different forms but it’s a world issue’
It all started with demonstrations protesting about the death of George Floyd from police brutality in Minneapolis, but the Black Lives Matter protest is spreading like wildfire across the whole of the US. Every day, thousands of people are taking to the streets. We asked American Studies expert Sara…
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PhD prize for astronomer Adrian Hamers
Adrian Hamer, who obtained his PhD in the group of Simon Portegies Zwart on 21 June 2016, receives a prestigious PhD thesis award prize of the International Astronomical Union. Hamers is one of the most talented, young, theoretical astrophysicists, according to the jury.