Carina Nebula as captured by the Jamess Webb Space Telescope — NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science

Astronomy News

Nexus Scholar alumni profile: Ricco Venterea ’24

"Nexus Scholars was the first time where the only thing I had to worry about was research."

Artistic portrait of a person in argyle pattern sweater vest holds a small model of a molecule and looks pensive

Portraits honor 8 Cornell faculty as ‘new heroes’

Eight Cornell faculty, including Provost Kavita Bala, are featured as “New Heroes” in a portrait series by Christopher Michel, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s inaugural artist-in-residence.

Illustration of a planet covered in orange-tinted clouds

How to spot life in the clouds on other worlds

Cloud cover is bad for picnics and for viewing stars through a telescope. But an exoplanet with dense or even total cloud cover could help astronomers searching for signs of life beyond our planet, Cornell researchers have found.

Golden sphere (a planet) against a black backdrop (space)

Now in 3D, maps begin to bring exoplanets into focus

Astronomers have generated the first three-dimensional map of a planet orbiting another star, revealing an atmosphere with distinct temperature zones – one so scorching that it breaks down water vapor, a team co-led by a Cornell expert reports in new research.

two black holes approach each other with a dark background of space

Cornell physicists update catalog of binary black holes

These simulations, developed with significant input from Cornell researchers using code written at Cornell, help scientists analyze gravitational waves observed by the LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA detectors located in the U.S., Italy and Japan.

A field of stars surrounding one circular and one oblong area of extreme blackness surrounded by a halo of light

On 10th anniversary, LIGO verifies Hawking’s theorem

The LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA team has announced a black hole merger similar to its first detection; a decade’s worth of technological advances allow unprecedented tests of General Relativity to be performed.

An orange-yellow sun with spheres of exoplanets silhouetted against it.

Is there water on an Earth-sized exoplanet? Study offers clues

TRAPPIST-1 e may have an atmosphere that could support having liquid water on the planet’s surface in the form of a global ocean or icy surface, according to new research.

New Faculty: Shami Chatterjee

Shami Chatterjee, Astronomy

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Together the Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science represent one of the world’s leading institutes for space science with over 110 active researchers. Research emphases include cosmology, solar system exploration, exoplanet science, and fundamental astrophysics. Graduate students, early career researchers and undergraduates, are actively engaged in current NASA missions, NSF consortia, and CCAT-Prime/FYST. The department and center also run an extensive and robust outreach program to the broader community.

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Department of Astronomy research

The Department of Astronomy is a leading center of astrophysics and planetary science research.

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Learn about the Carl Sagan Institute

A start stripping a planet's atmosphere. — This artist’s rendering shows a star stripping away a planet’s atmosphere. Image Credits: NASA/GSFC

Research spotlight

Universe Today reports "New research titled “Metal pollution in Sun-like stars from destruction of ultra-short-period planets” suggests that rocky planets are the source of these discrepancies. The authors are Christopher E. O’Connor and Dong Lai from Northwestern University and Cornell University, respectively." Read the full story here.

Learn more about astronomy research at Cornell.

Undergraduate program

The Astronomy Major at Cornell University is designed to be flexible so that it can be customized to the needs of each student.

Learn about the undergraduate program

Graduate program

Astronomy offers a wide variety of world-class research opportunities in astronomy, astrophysics and space science, with strong multidisciplinary connections, and a friendly and supportive atmosphere.

Explore the graduate program

Reaching beyond campus

In the spirit of the renowned Cornell Professor Carl Sagan, the Department of Astronomy reaches beyond campus in numerous ways. The Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility (SPIF) is a repository of spacecraft data, a facilitator of research, and a hub for PreK-12 education and public outreach activities. Ask an Astronomer has been answering questions from the curious since 1997. The Cornell Astronomical Society conducts viewing nights at the Fuertes Observatory and offers educational programing to the public.