Department of Astronomy

This year’s Perseid meteor shower is expected to be unusually intense. UW astronomer Woody Sullivan is quoted.

Using observations of storms in the solar system, a team of astronomers has extrapolated to predict lightning on several exoplanets.

Scientists for the first time have directly detected key organic compounds in a comet.

Are we alone? Fifty-five years ago, astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation that weighed the odds for aliens.

Alien life on exoplanets just might not flourish and just might die young, according to one study. Another study, co-authored by UW astronomy professor Woody Sullivan, is referenced.

Astronomers think they've found a "super Earth" that might be capable of sustaining life. UW scientists Eric Agol, Rory Barnes, Cecilia Bitz, Benjamin Charnay and Victoria Meadows were involved.

The Rosetta spacecraft has discovered key building blocks of life in the dust of a comet.

Wealthy technologist, Nathan Mygrvold, claims some of the world’s top experts on Earth-threatening asteroids are guilty of bad science. Željko Ivezic, professor of astronomy at the UW, is quoted.

Nathan P. Myhrvold, a former chief technologist at Microsoft and compiler of a six-volume compendium of cooking knowledge, has questioned NASA’s analysis of asteroids using heat emissions.

New research suggests that more planets in the Milky Way galaxy may harbor advanced civilizations than we previously imagined.

UW Astronomy's Rory Barnes speaks about the explorations for moons on newly-discovered distant planets.

Astronomy's "Cosmologies and Cultures" course explores the Big Bang theory but also other stories about the Universe's origins.

Research from the University of Washington-based Virtual Planetary Laboratory will help astronomers better identify “false positives” in the search for life beyond Earth.

After a star explodes as a supernova, it usually leaves behind either a black hole or what’s called a neutron star — the collapsed, high-density core of the former star.

Victoria Meadows, director of the UW's Virtual Planetary Laboratory, discusses whether oxygen in an exoplanet's atmosphere is a sign of living beings.