Department of Astronomy

An unexpected rain of spiders led to a lovely Twitter geek-out between astronomers and arachnologists.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the difficulties facing women in computer sciences, the problems and the search for solutions extend across the range of STEM fields.

Astronomers need to know how stars form and black holes burst -- and how to pry that information from the many terabytes of data that will stream from next-generation telescopes.

Calling all citizen scientists: The Australian National University wants you to join the search for supernovae.

David James, a visiting scientist with the University of Washington Department of Astronomy, assisted in the discovery of an exoplanet.

UW astronomer, Emily Levesque, is named as one of the 10 women in science who are changing the way we see the world.

A newly discovered planet around a distant star may jump to the top of the list of places where scientists should go looking for alien life. 

This week’s discovery of seven planets around a distant star has a connection right here at the University of Washington. The star is called TRAPPIST-1 and the scientist is Eric Agol.

Vera Rubin, the famous U.S. astronomer, died on Dec. 25. She was 88. Emily Levesque, an astronomer at the UW, is quoted. 

Vera Rubin, an astronomer who proved the existence of dark matter, one of the fundamental principles in the study of the universe, died Dec. 25. She was 88. 

NASA plans to use Star Wars' colorful worlds as inspiration in its hunt for other planets. Victoria Meadows, an astronomer at the UW, is quoted

Earth is a vibrant, lush planet that’s bustling with life, but if you’re far, far away would you be able to tell if there’s was life on Earth at all?

NASA’s rebooted mission, K2, seeks out new worlds closely orbiting stars smaller than the Sun.

More information surrounding the existence of Proxima B, the Earth-sized exoplanet near our sun, has come to light. Rory Barnes, professor of astronomy at the UW, is quoted.

A total of 203 people have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, but only two were women.