The Old Observatory has a rich history. On this page you will find a short version of the history that took place in the observatory.

Last week, our The Hague Diplomacy Platform was awarded a 10.000 euro grant from the KNAW's 'Valued'-fund to help us in our efforts in science communication and spreading knowledge about diplomacy to a wider public.

On May 15th, from 15.15 to 17.00 in the Vossiusroom, Leiden University Libraries will host a program on web-archiving and digital archives of Chinese communities in the Netherlands and Indonesia.

Former PhD student Cameron Mackie will been awarded not one, but two dissertation prizes for his thesis on the aromatic universe. His work could provide us with a virtual sniff of space. ‘These molecules in space likely smell like a big charcoal grill!’

Reprohack, an initiative from community members, won the Open Initiative Trophy on 11 February, a prize for the best open science initiative in the Netherlands. A Reprohack is a hackathon-like event where participants repeat research to see whether the results were reproducible.

Corporate R&D organizations and their relation to academic laboratories.

Which teacher did an outstanding job in not only transferring knowledge in novel ways but also in getting students enthusiastic and connecting a course to current research themes? Meet the nominees for the Teacher of the Year Award 2024!

Discover all the Leiden Science teaching talent that was part of this year's lineup.

Buurtlab 070 is a new Leiden University project in which residents, researchers and students from The Hague work together on climate, sustainability and biodiversity solutions. What do they expect of the lab?

All countries have turned into a global no-go zone and in the Covid-19 crisis flying citizens back home is an unprecedented logistical operation. More hidden from view is that helping people is one thing, but getting through to an elusive public with the objective of inducing behavioural change, is…

Disinformation has become a popular subject of study and debate. A plethora of publications and policies have emerged, aiming to analyse and curb the negative consequences of unwanted communication.

By adding their signature to the collaboration agreement on 31 May, Leiden University, TU Delft, space research institute SRON and NWO confirmed the move of SRON from Utrecht to South Holland. From 2021, the headquarters of the space research institute will be located on the Campus of Leiden Univ…

We explored the Universe using weak gravitational lensing, a phenomenon that occurs when light from distant galaxies is bent by the gravitational fields of closer cosmic objects, much like how a lens distorts light.

In this thesis, the research focuses on the properties of dark matter and dark matter haloes and how they connect with the galaxies we can observe in the Universe.

Promotor: K. Kuijken, Co-Promotor: H. Hoekstra

Quantum Information Science & Technology (QIST) encompasses the understanding, design, construction and investigation of quantum information processing systems, such as quantum computers, quantum communication networks, and quantum sensors.

Stellar feedback is a crucial ingredient in the evolution of galaxies.

The programme offers you the ability to combine experimental research with theoretical courses. The programme helps you grow into an independent and skilled physicist.

Galaxies in the local Universe fall into two main categories of spirals and ellipticals. In this Thesis, we explore the structural evolution of galaxies into this bimodal distribution.

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens & Prof.dr. L. Kaper (UvA)

Galaxies form and live inside dark matter haloes. As a consequence, they are exposed to the tidal fields generated by the surrounding matter distribution: this imprints a preferential direction to the galaxy shapes, which leads to a coherent alignment on physically close galaxies, called intrinsic a…

Understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems is one of the most fundamental challenges in astronomy. To directly image and study young exoplanets and the circumstellar disks they form from, dedicated high-contrast imaging instruments are built.

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

The Graduate School of Science offers 9 PhD programmes, spanning the entire spectrum of science. Do you have a Master's degree and are you proficient in English? Do you share a fascination for science? Then you may find the Graduate School of Science an inspiring and ideal environment for obtaining…

Patterned detectors are an existing technology that can be found in almost all color cameras.

Our current research focusses on the exploration of the Universe using the neutrino. This neutral, almost massless and only weakly interacting particle can open a window to the distant Universe and also dense regions from which photons cannot escape.

Pre-University Classes are intended for high school students who want to do more than is offered in the regular school curriculum. In the classes, students follow special lecture series and through that are introduced to the world of science.

Low-mass main-sequence stars like our Sun are continuous sources of outflowing hot magnetised plasma. In the case of the Sun, this is known as the solar wind, whereas for other stars they are called stellar winds.

This thesis focus on the interaction between M dwarf stellar winds and Galactic cosmic rays and the possible effects on the habitability of exoplanets.

Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the Universe. Its properties cannot be explained with the known laws of physics and elementary particles.

The physical origin of the dozens of stellar-mass binaries, the mergers of which have been detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration via gravitational waves, is still unknown.

Are you graduating at the Faculty of Science? Or are you supervising a PhD student? At the Graduate School of Science you find support at every phase of your PhD.

Promotor: Koen Kuijken Co-promotor: Henk Hoekstra

The Graduate School of Science offers PhD programmes spanning the entire spectrum of science from Mathematics to Environmental Science.

Galaxy intrinsic alignments induce a major astrophysical contamination to weak gravitational lensing measurements and need to be modelled and mitigated when extracting cosmological information from such measurements.

The Leidse Weer en Sterrenkunde Kring (LWSK) is a society of amateurs interested in astronomy, space travel and meteorology. The association organises a monthly lecture on a fascinating subject, given by an expert in the field.

Take a journey through the history and future of life on planet Earth.

The specialisation High-Tech Innovation is for MSc students in Sciences who are interested in interdisciplinary technologies and research related to /important for high technology industries, e.g. the semi-conductor industry or nano-fabrication. In addition to their primary field of study, students…

This specialisation combines advanced training in physics at a world-class institute with interdisciplinary courses on high-tech instrumentation and design and an industrial placement, preparing you for a career in which you develop and apply sophisticated physics techniques to innovations in indust…