Over the last three decades, the discovery of exoplanets has revealed the boundless variety of worlds beyond our own Solar System⁠. Majority of planetary systems contain short-period planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune⁠.

The Leidse Weer en Sterrenkunde Kring (LWSK) is a society of amateurs interested in astronomy, space travel and meteorology. The association organises a monthly lecture on a fascinating subject, given by an expert in the field.

Promotor: Christoph U. Keller, Co-promotores: Matthew A. Kenworthy, Frans Snik

Promotor: Prof.dr. H. J. A. Röttgering, Co-Promotor: Dr. M. Haverkorn

Welcome to the Hensen Lab! We are a young dynamic experimental research group starting at the Leiden Institute of Physics. Our lab addresses one of the key challenges of modern physics: understanding the interface between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

The Leiden Science Young Talent Award celebrates a student who completed their bachelor’s degree with an outstanding thesis.

Almost 3,000 students from the Faculty of Humanities completed the National Student Survey (NSE) in the spring of 2022. With a response rate of 38%, the Faculty scored slightly above the national average.

Shell, our country's largest company, is constructing a vast plastics plant in the United States. And it is doing so at a time when the European Union, led by the Netherlands, is launching a major pact to combat use of plastic.

Galaxies in the early universe are shrouded in a kind of mist: a cloud of hydrogen. With galaxies in the later universe this mist has disappeared. Astronomer Jorryt Matthee has made the first images of this dissipating mist. PhD defence 19 September.

They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.

Promotor: Promotor: W.Th.F. den Hollander, Co-promotor: V. Sidoravicius.

Humans share meaning through language. Over time, repeated interactions have shaped languages into forms that match our cognitive preferences, making them structured, expressive, easy to learn, and ultimately, meaningful.

In this thesis, I studied the origin and evolution of the non-thermal radiation in merging galaxy clusters.

Last year the research program Teaching and Teacher Learning of ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching had its recurrent external review.

As Professor of African Linguistics, Nancy Kula increases our knowledge of variation across languages. Her inaugural lecture is on Monday 23 March.

NASA’s telescope SOFIA has provided a new glimpse of the chemistry in the inner region surrounding massive young stars where future planets could begin to form. Leiden PhD candidate Andrew Barr writes about it in the Astrophysical Journal. The scientists found massive quantities of water and organic…

This dissertation is organised into three parts, each addressing a distinct research area related to Gibbs measures.

Joseph Callingham from the Leiden Observatory receives the Louise Webster Prize for outstanding post-doctoral research. The prize is awarded by the Astronomical Society of Australia for Callingham’s search for the most extreme object in the Universe.

University lecturer Laurie Cosmo, having grown up in New York, came to the Hague from Rome, Italy, where she fell under the spell of the Kunstmuseum. ‘I loved the building even before I worked at Leiden University.’

An unprecedented space telescope, an astrolab that makes space ice and molecules that may lead to the origin of life… The Ice Age project has all the prerequisites to become a very fascinating research project – if it is not one already. Leiden astronomers Melissa McClure, Harold Linnartz and Will Rocha…

From the effects of hormone fluctuations in women via the interior structure of giant planets to the prehistory of the languages: six Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council.

The plan was to research the years surrounding the creation of the signature H.P. Berlage building of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, but due to the lockdown, University Lecturer Laurie Kalb Cosmo has hardly been able to visit museums. Yet she succeeds in continuing her research for the Museums, Collections…

The safety of students is a priority and hence an ever recurring issue at the NVIC. NVIC not only attaches great importance to the safety of its students, but also that its students feel safe.

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.…

Humans can see the world through the eyes of other humans and imagine what they know, want, and intend. This competence is known as Theory of Mind.

High-angular-resolution observations of the circumstellar material have uncovered numerous and very diverse substructures in protoplanetary discs, raising the question of whether they are caused by forming planets or other mechanisms.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium

Leiden has the second-highest percentage of female professors of all the Dutch universities. These are the results of the annual Women Professors Monitor. The Open University is the only university with more female professors.

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

An important award like the Spinoza Prize, the 'Dutch Nobel Prize', generates lots of media attention. An overview.

A major new study of ancient DNA has traced the movement of people into southern Britain during the Bronze Age. In the largest such analysis published to date, scientists examined the DNA of nearly 800 ancient individuals. Publication in Nature on December 22, 2021.

To strenghten ties with the public, press, other academics and wider society, LION employs an outreach officer.

We are a dynamic research group at the Leiden Institute of Physics. Our aim is to explore and understand quantum materials, including strange metals, high-temperature superconductors, and quantum critical electron matter.

During the bachelor’s programme Astronomy you will immerse yourself in questions about our universe. Questions such as: ‘what happens in a black hole?’ and ‘what is dark matter?’ In doing so you will learn to apply mathematics and physics to astronomical problems and you will work with computer simulations…

This thesis takes steps toward understanding the interaction between gas-phase and solid-state molecules in star- and planet-forming regions.

The Tatiana Afanassjewa-lecture series was a series of public talks in Dutch that was started during the Covid-19 lockdown. The talks were given by Leiden physicists on wednesday evenings, intended for everyone with an interest in physics.

The High-Tech Innovation specialisation consists of a 60 EC track alongside the students' core MSc programme: Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics.

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This thesis aims to demonstrate how the achromatic nature and design flexibility of liquid-crystal optics can be used to improve high-contrast imaging instruments to facilitate detailed exoplanet characterization.

The Astronomy and Instrumentation specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes highly specialized instrumentation courses, a selection of advanced electives and two research projects.

The zoo of detected exoplanets reveals both the uniqueness of our own Solar System and the complexity of planetary system formation, sparking fundamental questions about how planetary systems form and evolve.

Leiden alumnus Makoto Yoshida from Japan studied Dutch history and politics from 1996 to 1997. Now he is back in Leiden with his wife who is currently a student at the Faculty of Humanities. Some things still surprise him. 'Everyone at university uses first names, which was - and still is - unacceptable…

The recently opened ICPA (International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine) in The Hague will be responsible for coordinating the prosecution of Russia for the crime of aggression and possibly also the prosecution of Vladimir Putin. The ICPA aims to close the gaps…

Shell, our country's largest company, is constructing a vast plastics plant in the United States. And it is doing so at a time when the European Union, led by the Netherlands, is launching a major pact to combat use of plastic.

This PhD project investigates how literary translators and journalists react and respond to machine-translated metaphors and what the repercussions for professional practice are.

Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that. Webb has for the first time observed water in the inner disc around young star where at greater distance, giant planets have already formed. The research…

Every year in the Netherlands, thousands of children are placed in out-of-home care because their parents are unable to look after them properly or because the children are at risk.