News
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What tiny isotopes reveal about planets outside our solar system 01 June 2023Planets existing in other solar systems contain invaluable information about the origin of planets and life. PhD candidate Yapeng Zhang has studied th...
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How do you recognise the atmosphere of extraterrestrial lava worlds? 23 May 2023In the past 30 years, over 5,000 planets have been discovered outside our solar system. One common exoplanet is the lava world, a hot super-Earth with...
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BlackGEM telescopes begin hunt for gravitational-wave sources 16 May 2023Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern s...
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Astronomers spot benzene in planet-forming disk around star for first time 11 May 2023An international team of astronomers including Leiden professor Ewine van Dishoeck has observed the benzene molecule (C6H6) in a planet-forming disk a...
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Hunting for life’s building blocks at minus 250 degrees Celsius 02 May 2023Searching for life’s building blocks lightyears away is an important task of the James Webb Space Telescope. But how does it know what to look for? Ph...
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Astronomers see birth cluster of galaxies in early universe 30 March 2023An international team of astronomers has discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the cluster-in-formation around the Spiderweb Galaxy. Based partly...
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How the speed demons of the universe tell us something about the Milky Way 10 March 2023They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into the...
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Astronomers find missing link for origin of water in solar systems 08 March 2023An international team of astronomers, including astronomers from Leiden University, has found the missing link in the path taken by water through star...
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The James Webb Telescope takes stunning photos. But what exactly are we looking at? 06 March 2023For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to se...
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Vici grant for research on the formation of galaxies 23 February 2023
How do galaxies form? That is what astronomer Mariska Kriek will be researching in the coming years. She received an NWO Vici grant of 1.5 million eur...
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Four Vici grants for Leiden University researchers 23 February 2023Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded prestigious Vici grants the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced. The honoured applica...
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Is there oxygen on exoplanets? New telescope finds out 20 February 2023To what extent does exoplanet Proxima b resemble our Earth? And is there some form of life present? Astronomers hope to find answers to these question...
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Finding the origin of giant black holes 20 February 2023‘Space Antenna LISA will open an unprecedented window on the Universe,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi. The mission will be the first one to detect...
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Grants to build large-scale research facilities 20 February 2023Five projects with researchers from Leiden University have received a grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to build or upgrade existing researc...
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Webb reveals new details in Pandora’s Cluster 16 February 2023Astronomers have captured a new deep field of Pandora's Cluster (Abell 2744) with the James Webb Space Telescope. The images show never-before-seen de...