Promotores: Prof.dr. C.U. Keller, Prof.dr. H.C. Gerritsen

Promotor: H.V.J. Linnartz

Promotor: Prof.dr. I.A.G. Snellen, C.U. Keller

A century ago, it was unclear whether the stars in the sky were clustered in groups, or widely spread in the universe.

High-angular-resolution observations of the circumstellar material have uncovered numerous and very diverse substructures in protoplanetary discs, raising the question of whether they are caused by forming planets or other mechanisms.

Promotor: M. Franx, Co-Promotor: I.F. Labbé

This thesis investigates how galaxies form and what diversifies the evolutionary histories of galaxies.

Papers written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Institute of Prehistory, Volume I.

An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Leiden University has discovered a whirlwind of dust and pebbles in orbit around a young star. It is possible that a planet is forming in the pebbles. The team of scientists made the discovery during the time that designers and developers…

The research of the Van Eck Group focusses on 3 interconnected research lines: 1) Identification and therapeutic targeting of key pathways/regulators in macrophages essential for prevention of atherosclerotic lesion development or stimulation of regression of existing lesions, 2) Atherosclerosis as…

How are the building blocks of life formed?

Leiden Observatory provides full education programmes in Astronomy both at the bachelor’s and master’s level. We integrate world-class scientific research and excellent education. Read all about our study programmes!

Research at the THEOR group is comprised of the following research themes:

Welcome to the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities.

An unprecedented space telescope, an astrolab that makes space ice and molecules that may lead to the origin of life… The Ice Age project has all the prerequisites to become a very fascinating research project – if it is not one already. Leiden astronomers Melissa McClure, Harold Linnartz and Will Rocha…

Dust particles in space form the basis for new stars and planets. But what do these particles consist of and how do they behave? Sascha Zeegers studied this. PhD defence 1 November.

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…

In the discs of dust and gasses around young stars, mysterious structures occur. Together with professor Ewine van Dishoeck, PhD student Paolo Cazzoletti investigate how we can explain these forms, such as rings, spirals and holes. On 12 December, he will defend his thesis.

It’s better to cut our nitrogen emissions now than to solve the consequences later at great expense. That’s the lesson we can learn from the Dutch nitrogen crisis, according to nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman. In Science, he shares this lesson with other countries. According to Erisman, we should…

When stars are born, large clouds of gas and dust form that are known as circumstellar discs. Research by PhD candidate Francisca Concha-Ramírez shows that strong radiation from neighbouring stars soon evaporates the dust in these discs, which can prevent planet formation at an early stage. PhD defence…

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor…

Rychard Bouwens from the Leiden Observatory is the first scientist in the Netherlands to be assigned a Large Programme on the state-of-the-art ALMA telescope in Chile. With his team, he wants to use the unique capabilities of the billion-euro facility to investigate the build-up of massive galaxies…

The research in my group addresses a range of topics related to quantum many-body physics.

Simulations of galaxies help researchers understand astronomical observations better. The EAGLE simulation, a large project in which Leiden astronomers play a leading role, shows the evolution of the Universe, from just after the Big Bang to the present day.

For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to see, but what exactly are we looking at? Assistant professor Melissa McClure explains.

An international team of astronomers led by scientists from Leiden Observatory has for the first time characterised a dust disk surrounding a young super-Jupiter, which is either a giant planet or brown dwarf. They detected infrared emission from the disk which might indicate that moons may have formed.…

An international team of astronomers including Leiden professor Ewine van Dishoeck has observed the benzene molecule (C6H6) in a planet-forming disk around a young star for the first time. The observations tell us more about the forming of planets in this disc, like our own Earth. The scientists publish…

How do you progress from an immense gas cloud somewhere in the universe to a star with planets? Research by Astronomy PhD student Martijn van Gelder sheds more light on the earliest phases of this process. He will receive his doctorate on November 24th.

Astronomers from Leiden University have discovered that the star wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula prevents more stars from forming in the immediate vicinity. They made the discovery with data from the SOFIA observatory. This was announced by co-author Xander Tielens during a press conference…

An international team of astronomers, including astronomers from Leiden University, has found the missing link in the path taken by water through star-forming clouds and young stars to comets and planets. They did so with the help of the ALMA observatory in Chile. The researchers published their findings…

Our solar system probably evolved in the same way as most of the other planetary systems around us. This has been shown by German-Austrian-Dutch research on more than 870 planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud A. The five researchers, including three from the Leiden Observatory, published their findings…

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has, after years of searching and defying the boundaries of a telescope, for the first time directly captured polarised light from an exoplanet. From this light they can deduct that a disk of dust and gas orbits the exoplanet. In this disk moons are possibly…

An international team of astronomers has shown in a laboratory at Leiden University (the Netherlands) that methane can form on icy dust particles in space. The possibility had existed for quite some time, but because the conditions in space were difficult to simulate, it was not possible to prove this…

An international team of astronomers led by Violeta Gámez Rosas (Leiden University) has observed a supermassive black hole hidden in a ring of dust. This discovery fits the idea that the so-called active centers of galaxies are much more similar than observations show, because the viewing angle from…

Astronomers Professor Christoph Keller and Dr Frans Snik will be developing a commercial module for measuring fine particulates. They have been awarded an STW Demonstrator subsidy of 138,000 euros.

It is the largest database for space ice yet: The Leiden Ice Database for Astrochemistry: LIDA. Created by astrophysicists at the Leiden Observatory, LIDA includes not only hundreds of measurement data, but also software to examine astronomical observations and prepare new measurements with the James…

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…

Professor Ewine van Dishoeck, together with an international team of colleagues, has written an overview of everything we know about water in interstellar clouds thanks to the Herschel space observatory. The article, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, summarizes existing knowledge and…

The German Astronomical Society has awarded the 2019 Karl Schwarzschild Medal to professor of Molecular astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck. She will receive the medal during the annual meeting of the society from 16 to 20 September 2019 in Stuttgart.

The Elision Ensemble made a video production of Richard Barrett's half-hour composition 'world-line'.

Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, was presented with the Kavli Prize by King Harald V of Norway during a ceremony on 4 September in Oslo. The prize consists of a gold medal and one million dollars.

An international team of astronomers, with researchers at Leiden Observatory playing a leading role, has mapped the fuel for galaxy formation in the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The results of the research have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Joseph Callingham from the Leiden Observatory receives the Louise Webster Prize for outstanding post-doctoral research. The prize is awarded by the Astronomical Society of Australia for Callingham’s search for the most extreme object in the Universe.

Scientists at Leiden University (Netherlands), Stuttgart University (Germany) and Ural Federal University (Russia) have successfully put forward a novel, computed, reaction mechanism that was experimentally tested and show that formaldehyde is formed at much earlier stages in the birthplaces of stars…

New ALMA observations show there is ordinary table salt in a not-so-ordinary location: 1,500 light-years from Earth in the disk surrounding a massive young star. Though salts have been found in the atmospheres of old, dying stars, this is the first time they have been seen around young stars in stellar…

All the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun in an ecliptical plane. This is to be expected because our solar system was formed from a so-called protoplanetary disc. PhD candidate Anna Miotello has studied these kinds of discs and how they influence the formation of stars and planets. PhD…

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.

The success of Dutch radio astronomy in the last century was largely due to Leiden astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort. He made astute use of circumstances in the post-war period. Historian Astrid Elbers' research focuses on this golden period.

Instead of feasting on one of the many Easter meals or enjoying the sun on Scheveningen Beach, a delegation of Leiden University College The Hague students spend last week on the preparations for hosting the UCSRN Sports Tournament. On a sunny Easter Monday, University College students from 8 different…