Department of Astronomy

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is one of the most Earthlike places in the solar system. As the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft examines Titan over many years, its discoveries bring new mysteries.

A UW postdoctoral scientist is among six nationwide recipients of the 2015 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships.

As telescopes of ever-greater power scan the cosmos looking for life, knowing where to look — and where not to waste time looking — will be of great value.

New research by UW astronomer Rory Barnes and co-authors describes possible planetary systems where a gravitational nudge from one planet could have a mild to devastating effect on the orbit and climate of another, possibly habitable world.

New research led by an astronomy graduate student at UW indicates planets orbiting close to low mass stars may have lost their chance at hosting life because of intense heat during their formative years.

The University of Washington Astronomy Department is taking starry nights to the schools, inflating its portable planetarium in classrooms across the Seattle area.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will photograph the visible sky 1,000 times over ten years, providing unparalleled data about our universe.

To understand the role that M-dwarf stars play in the hunt for habitable exoplanets, NPR talks with experts including Vikki Meadows, director of the astrobiology program.

Nearly 800 students and supporters have signed a petition on Change.org hoping to halt plans to repurpose the Physics-Astronomy Reading Room (PARR) into an eScience Data Science Studio.

It is a bit bigger and somewhat colder, but a planet circling a star 500 light-years away is otherwise the closest match of our home world discovered so far. Victoria Meadows, professor of astronomy, is quoted.

University of Washington astronomers and colleagues have measured the distance to galaxies six billion light-years away -- about halfway back to the Big Bang -- to an accuracy of just 1 percent.

The Kepler space telegraph hit the skids in May after its precision-pointing system failed. But engineers have given it a new way to steady its aim, along with hope for a new NASA mission.

The mystery of how the surface of Mars, long dead and dry, could have flowed with water billions of years ago may have been solved by research that included a University of Washington astronomer.

The University of Washington's Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics is about to go hunting. Their quarry: A theorized-but-never-seen elementary particle called an axion.

It might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable "runaway greenhouse" stage, according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington.