Department of Astronomy

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.

New climate model research by a UW astronomy student, has found planets orbiting cool stars actually may be warmer and less icy than their counterparts orbiting much hotter stars.

James Davenport, a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, recently made a map of the world using only runways, helicopter pads and airports.

A UW astronomer is part of an international team that found six or seven planets orbiting a nearby star where only two or three were thought to exist.

UW astronomy and School of Art professors collaborate to create two unique sundials at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco.

KUOW's Weekday talks with Toby Smith of the astronomy department, who explains why the rotation of planets is significant and talks about what other astronomical phenomena to watch for this year.

Woody Sullivan is the UW astronomy professor known as "Mr. Sundial" for making Seattle the unlikely sundial capital of North America. Now he's recreated a Renaissance ceiling sundial in his home office.

It's not move-in ready, but an Earth-like planet was recently discovered by a UW astronomer using the Kepler Space Telescope. The planet, Kepler 62f, is outside the solar system.