The Leiden Observatory was very pleased to welcome eight bachelor’s students from Beijing Normal University at 8 July for the BNU Astronomy Summer School. In two weeks’ time, the Summer School students followed an interactive programme in computational astrophysics. ‘It’s surprising how much you can…

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

For the second year in a row, the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society will take place online, from 28 June to 2 July 2021. Also this year, the Leiden Observatory is hosting the online event. More than 2250 participants have registered for this conference, a record number.

Dr M.R. Hogerheijde (1971) has been named professor by special appointment of Instrumental Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam (UvA)’s Faculty of Science. The chair was designated on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Physics, Medicine and Surgery.

Course, Masterclass

The board of the Pastoor Schmeits Prize for Astronomy Foundation has awarded the Pastoor Schmeits Prize 2025 to two individuals: Yamila Miguel, affiliated to the Leiden Observatory, Leiden University and SRON, and to Else Starkenburg, affiliated to the Kapteyn Institute, University of Groningen. The…

On Thursday November 15th, Leiden University organizes its Physics & Astronomy Ladies' Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on five female researchers, who talk about their experiences working in science.

The LOFAR radio telescope produces petabytes of data every year. Radio Astronomers use complex multi-step pipelines to process this data and produce scientific images.

Many galaxy clusters exhibit bright diffuse radio emission that traces the underlying structure of the intracluster medium (ICM).

Promotor: I. A. G. Snellen, Co-promotor: M. A. Kenworthy

This research delves into a region of space known as the interstellar medium (ISM), which is essentially the area between the stars filled with gas and dust.

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From telescopes to science fiction: in just one semester, students with no background in physics or astronomy get to explore the universe. The first group of students started last month in the new minor Our Universe.

Leiden astronomers published two articles on more sustainable astronomy in a special section of the journal Nature Astronomy. Among other things, they calculate that their online conference EAS 2020 consumed three thousand times less carbon dioxide than the face-to-face edition a year earlier. They…

Meticulous analysis of hundreds of photographic plates from the star J1407 between 1890 and 2007 show no stellar eclipses. Robin Mentel, a master student at Leiden University, could not detect eclipses of the star J1407 by a planet hypothesized to have giant rings, called J1407b. However, an eclipse…

Stuck at home with little to do? Don’t worry, because we have the perfect space related activities you can do from home, alone or with your family, in Dutch or English.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Franx, Co-Promotor: Rychard Bouwens

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Franx & Prof.dr. P.G. van Dokkum (Yale University)

Any questions about the 444 celebrations? Please get in touch!

They are among the rarest and most extremely luminous stars in our universe: yellow hypergiants. Their spectacular eruptions have intrigued astronomers for decades, and now an international team led by Leiden’s emeritus professor Arnout van Genderen has gained new insights into the mechanisms behind…

Do you have any questions about the role of the University in Leiden2022?

A group of united astronomers have successfully convinced Europe’s leading astronomy journal Astronomy & Astrophysics to institute a name change policy for transgender people and others. ‘It’s really frustrating that such a large organisation needed an initiative from outside to adopt a more inclusive…

On 26 October, Leiden University held its first online signing ceremony, signing an agreement with China’s top university Tsinghua to establish a joint PhD programme to co-foster young researchers in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics.

‘We intend to use the arrival of SRON in South Holland to give a serious impetus to research and activities related to space travel and astronomy in the broadest sense of the word.' These were the words of Rector Carel Stolker of Leiden University at the ceremony where the first pile of the new SRON…

Leiden astronomy Master's student Arend Moerman has received an A+ for his thesis research on the simulation of chaotic interactions of three black holes. The simulations, which he carried out together with his Leiden and Oxford colleagues, show that lighter black holes tend to slingshot each other…

Do you have a question about the new Gorlaeus Building?

Do you practice public engagement? The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has just released a unique set of open-source materials designed to be used in public engagement training workshops.

Leiden astronomers and ecologists are developing an instrument that lets people measure the quality of surface water with a smartphone.This international citizen science project, MONOCLE, is a collaboration between scientists and local people in Tanzania, Brazil and four European countries.

How does the Chinese government communicate with its citizens? Yuxi Nie obtained her PhD with her thesis on communication strategies of the Chinese state media agency Xinhua. She discovered that on social media, Xinhua communicated in different ways, depending on the target group.

Kyra van der Moezel defended her thesis on 7 September 2016.

During her master's thesis, Nashanty Brunken (24) worked in a team with five other women. With this female team, they discovered the largest molecule so far identified in a disc. 'I have learned so much and because we are all women, it is incredibly empowering. It's very cool to see how far we've come…

Lecture, Astronomy on Tap

Astronomer Ignas Snellen studies exoplanets using telescope observations. But how is that possible when all the big telescopes are more or less at a standstill? Luckily, he has contact from home with a robot telescope in Mexico and his WIFI is finally working well.

Lecture, Astronomy on Tap

This summer, Leiden, The Hague, Noordwijk and Delft will be hosting the ‘Sizzling Summer of Space’. To tie in with the international Space Studies Programme, all kinds of activities on space exploration are being organised, from a film evening to a Science Café and an exhibition of satellites to the…

We have conducted a full spectral line survey of the 3-13 micron region of two massive protostars, AFGL 2591 and AFGL 2136, for the first time at high spectral resolution.

I have studied the hot, diffuse gas around and between galaxies. Specifically, I have used the EAGLE numerical simulations of galaxy formation to predict the properties of this gas, and I have used those properties to predict specific observables: soft X-ray absorption and emission lines.

Promotor: J.S. Kaastra Co-promotor: E. Constantini

This thesis explores the theoretical and observational properties of distant massive galaxies that harbour active black holes in their centres and shine brightly at radio wavelengths.

An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a highly luminous region at the center of a galaxy, powered by the accretion into a supermassive black hole and emitting energy from radio waves to gamma rays, often outshining the host galaxy.

Large areas of space are filled by molecular clouds that consist of gas and dust grains that are the remnants of dead stars. When these clouds start collapsing, the decreasing temperature and increasing density cause gas particles to start accreting onto dust grain surfaces.

Promotor: H.J.A. Röttgering, Co-promotor: M. Haverkorn

Within the field of astronomy, understanding how galaxies grow and evolve from the Big Bang to the present day is a challenging and complex question.

One of the key quests in astronomy is to study the growth and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Radio observations provide a powerful means of studying the formation of stars and subsequent buildup of distant galaxies, in a way that is unbiased by the presence of dust.

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