At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars, which are called exo-planets. They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems.…

At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars (exoplanets). They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems. This way they address…

Crises like climate change and loss of biodiversity threaten our planet. That’s why sustainability is an important topic in research and education across Leiden University. On this website you read how scientists from many disciplines work together in researching sustainability.

The Livable Planet program is one of the eight interdisciplinary programmes that were launched at Leiden University in 2020. Leiden’s Liveable Planet program aims to combine scientific, policy, socio-cultural and historical/archaeological research at Leiden University into coherent research with…

The Liveable Planet programme assists scientists and local communities in taking up a collective responsibility to develop in a sustainable way. This is done together with a lot of scientist from various disciplines.

In the large gas clouds between the stars, chemical reactions take place under extreme conditions, giving rise to both small molecules, such as water and common salt, as well as large complex molecules that can serve as the building blocks of life. This is known as astrochemistry and it is something…

This thesis addresses the chemical processes that determine the compositions of giant planet atmospheres.

This thesis discusses the physical and chemical processes than influence the composition of forming planets.

Promotor: Prof. dr. I. Snellen, Co-Promotor: Dr. M. Kenworthy

Lecture

To address the fundamental questions of how life on Earth emerged and how common life may be in the Universe, it is crucial to know the chemical composition of the planet-forming material.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: R. Heijungs

Promotores: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Prof.dr. C.P. Dullemond

The focus of this thesis is how stars like our Sun and planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth are formed.

Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

Leiden University has participated in an international study carried out by the CARMENES consortium, which has discovered two small, terrestrial planets around Teegarden’s Star. The planets have masses similar to Earth and their temperatures could be mild enough to sustain liquid water on their surf…

Walsh

PhD Defence

Planet formation is a surprisingly homogeneous process that does not take place gradually from inside out, but that occurs everywhere at the same time in a proto-planetary disc, as Dave Lommen has discovered. He will obtain his doctorate this week based on his research into the dust around young stars…

Many hot, rocky planets outside of our own solar system started out as large, gaseous Neptunes. This is what astronomers at Leiden University contend in a recent online publication.

It is theoretically possible that habitable planets exist around pulsars, rotating neutron stars. Such planets must have an enormous atmosphere that convert the deadly X-rays and high energy particles of the pulsar into heat. That is stated in a scientific paper by astronomers Alessandro Patruno and…

Which molecules go into forming planets? PhD candidate Christian Eistrup and his colleagues have created new models to research this question. Their findings could change our idea of which molecules were forming Jupiter or even Earth.

LUGO got the opportunity to present the Green Paper at the third lunch session of the Liveable Planet initiative on the 25th of May.

A team of European astronomers under Leiden leadership has discovered that dust particles around a star already coagulate before the star is fully grown. These agglomerated dust particles are the first step in the formation of planets. The research publish their discovery in the journal of Nature As…

Astronomers led by Leiden astronomer Sebastiaan Haffert have directly imaged two planets that are gravitationally carving out a wide gap within a planet-forming disk surrounding a young star. While over a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged, this is only the second multi-planet system to be p…

A remarkable population of short period transiting rocky exoplanets with equilibrium temperatures on the order of 2,000 K has recently been discovered.

An international team of astronomers, including Leiden’s Christian Ginski, has discovered previously unobserved structures in a debris disk around a nearby star. Article published in Nature on 8 October.

Thinking Planet is a big public philosophy event which aims to bring ideas from all over the world to the Netherlands.

Ever since the foundation of Leiden University in 1575, philosophy in Leiden has been committed to open-mindedness, dialogue, and comparative perspectives. In line with this tradition it makes perfect sense to question the widespread self-image of philosophy as well. Is philosophy the exclusive privilege…

A group of astronomers was actually examining the dust disc around the young double star CS Cha, when they saw a small dot on the edge of their images. It turned out to be a small planet of only a few million years young, which moves along with the double star. Whether it is a super-Jupiter in the making…

The ALMA Local Expertise Group (Allegro) is located in the Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht). Professor Ewine van Dishoeck: ‘The Netherlands has played an important role in establishing ALMA. Thanks to this subsidy, we can now reap the scientific benefits.'

The work presented in this thesis is based on ALMA surveys of protoplanetary disks in three star-forming regions: Lupus, OMC-2, and NGC 2024.

This thesis examines the link between simple molecules and the underlying structure and chemistry within protoplanetary disks - the birthplaces of planets.

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. L.B.F.M. Waters (UvA), Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

Promotor: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

A team of astronomers led by Dutch scientists have directly imaged a giant planet orbiting at a large distance around a sun-like star. Why this planet is so massive, and how it got to be there, is still a mystery. The researchers will publish their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

If there is life outside our galaxy, how could we find it? In his Oort Lecture, James Kasting talks about his search for simple life on other planets. Kasting was in the Netherlands for two weeks, because he was invited as the Oort Professor 2018.

An international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the disk formed. Thus,…

My work focuses on a class of astronomical objects called protoplanetary disks.

The research project ‘Adaptive Semi-Strong Ecosystem Dynamics’ of Prof.Dr. Arjen Doelman is selected for funding as one of the 7 research projects within the program Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE) of NWO.

The whole world gets raw materials from Latin America, but at the expense of nature. Håvar Solheim researches the role of organised crime in this environmental crime and Soledad Valdivia researches sustainable urban initiatives in Latin America. What do these university lecturers think the future of…

Festival

National Meat Free Week, from 11 to 17 March, encourages us to choose the environmentally friendly option more often. But apart from preventing animal suffering, does eating less meat really make much difference? Three questions for Leiden Professor of Industrial Ecology Arnold Tukker.

Lecture

This thesis focuses on protoplanetary disks: flattened structures of gas and dust around young stars in which planets are expected to form and grow.

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has taken the first-ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. The researchers used The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope for this, known as ESO’s VLT. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely…

Festival

Circumstellar discs are the reservoirs of gas and dust that surround young stars and have the potential to become planetary systems.