An international team of astronomers led by Ardjan Sturm of the Observatory has made the first two-dimensional inventory of ice in a planet-forming disk of dust and gas surrounding a young star. The researches, including Melissa McClure, used the James Webb Space Telescope and publish their findings…

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‘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 Gravitational Waves from space. These can tell us more about the beginning of our Universe and the formation of black holes. With an NWO grant of twelve…

No less than four Leiden research teams have been awarded a grant by NWO. On 27 July NWO honoured 21 applications in the Open Competition ENW-XL. NWO awards the grants to consortia in the exact and natural sciences who are doing unconnected fundamental research that is 'driven by curiosity'.

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

An international team of astronomers, led by Will Rocha of Leiden Observatory, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds are present in early-stage protostars, where planets have not yet 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…

An international team led by astronomers at Leiden University has shown in laboratory experiments that sulfur can bind with ammonium under icy cosmic conditions and form a salt that sticks to dust and pebbles. The resulting sulfur salt not only helps to explain the mystery of the missing sulfur gas,…

The radio telescope LOFAR, with a major contribution from Leiden Observatory, has produced the most detailed radio map of the Universe ever made. Never before have so many cosmic radio sources been captured in a single survey: 13.7 million.

Suzan Verberne has been appointed professor of Natural Language Processing at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) from 1 October. Verberne has been at LIACS since 2017 as group leader of the Text Mining and Retrieval group.

The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

A group of astronomers led by Leiden PhD student Sebastian Zieba has discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c has a thin atmosphere. Although the planet is nearly identical to Venus in size and temperature, and was expected to have a thick atmosphere,…

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.

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Leiden University is currently working on the new Gorlaeus Building, a sustainable modern building for the Faculty of Science. To make room for the phase 2A construction work, a plane tree of over 20 metres in height was moved on 17 December. The tree has been conserved. Its new home will be on the…

Software development is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a sociologist. Three years ago, John Boy began developing his software package Textnets. Because of Corona, he was less able to concentrate on writing scientific research and also setting up the online courses…

Finally we know for sure that there is a black hole at the centre of our own galaxy. Today, astronomers unveiled the first ever photo of Sagittarius A*, a super-massive object at the centre of the Milky Way. This picture could only be taken thanks to the cooperation of telescopes worldwide.

A major new study of ancient DNA has traced the movement of people into southern Britain during the Bronze Age. In the largest such analysis published to date, scientists examined the DNA of nearly 800 ancient individuals. Publication in Nature on December 22, 2021.

Not everything that comes close to a black hole is swallowed by it. Black holes can also hurl material away, and that chance turns out to be considerably bigger than previously thought. Martijn Oei's accidental discovery and his subsequent research on it earned him a cum laude promotion on 12 Decemb…

The need for knowledge among practitioners and the lack of an academic knowledge base for specifically collective arrangements of social work in the Netherlands were the reason for Anouk de Koning, Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to start working on a Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) application…

From the effects of hormone fluctuations in women via the interior structure of giant planets to the prehistory of the languages: six Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council.

They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.

69% of young Dutch people are struggling financially. They’re more likely to take risks by gambling, investing in cryptocurrencies or paying on credit. Like most Dutch people, the young are turning to family and friends for help and advice, rather than experts.

There is broad support for the active involvement of the Netherlands in international cooperation. This is shown by a new public opinion survey among residents of South Holland, conducted by researchers from Leiden University.

Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that. Webb has for the first time observed water in the inner disc around young star where at greater distance, giant planets have already formed. The research…

A team led by Leiden University in the Netherlands and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory have, for the first time, robustly detected semi-heavy water ice around a young sunlike star. In this ice, some of the ordinary hydrogen atoms have been replaced by deuterium, a heavier variant of hydroge…

How do molecules originate and evolve in space? And how does that ultimately determine the chemical composition of planets and their atmospheres? The Dutch Astrochemistry Network (DANIII) receives 1.6 million euros from NWO to find out. A large group of Leiden astronomers and chemists is contributing:…

The brightness peak of the ring around M87's supermassive black hole has shifted 30 degrees counterclockwise in a year. This is shown by new images released by the Event Horizon Telescope consortium.

Op maandag 1 april 2024 stierf onze leermeester, vriend en gewaardeerd collega Dr. Alexander Hendrik de Groot (Sander).

Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.

The annual homicide rate has decreased considerably since the 1990s. In their hunt for an explanation, researchers Pauline Aarten and Marieke Liem made a surprising discovery: if you divide homicides into categories, you find significant differences in the homicide rate. Publication in the European…

Dark matter. Something invisible that, according to calculations, comprises about 85% of the matter in the universe. With an ERC Advanced Grant of €2.5 million, Professor of Observational Cosmology Henk Hoekstra will map out even more precisely where this dark matter is to be found.

For the first time, we’re seeing what Euclid sees. The telescope’s initial observations have provided a wealth of new information about our universe. But according to cosmologist Alessandra Silvestri, this is just the beginning. The research helps us gain a deeper understanding of the past, present,…

A European team of astronomers has discovered the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way. It is more than thirty times as massive as our sun and is located in the constellation of Aquila, about two thousand light-years from Earth. The astronomers stumbled upon the black hole by chance while preparing…

ASTRON en de Universiteit Leiden beginnen samen een nieuwe leerstoel over sterrenkunde en AI. Bijzonder hoogleraar Joeri van Leeuwen gaat deze positie vullen.

A special type of mirror to reflect X-rays has more possible applications than space research. Targeted radiation therapy for cancer, for example. Next to his full-time job, physicist David Girou mapped out the possibilities. He will receive his PhD on 14 June.

With his clever measuring methods Ignas Snellen – together with his team – was the first to detect carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of exoplanets. For his pioneering work the Leiden astrophysicist has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest academic honour in the Netherlands. The prize of 2.5 million…

Educator Marjo de Graauw is awarded a Comenius education grant from the Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek (NRO) for her lab education project Stress-free laboratory education with video labs.

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

She develops algorithms that outperform leading optimization techniques and can be applied in many fields. For this work, Niki van Stein and her team have won the GECCO Humies Award. ‘With our method, we can create and refine algorithms for a wide range of applications—algorithms that are better than…

To look for atmospheres around planets outside our solar system is to look for extraterrestrial life. Astronomist Sebastian Zieba used data from the James Webb Space Telescope to study small rocky exoplanets but found no aliens yet. However, his findings are still very interesting for future observations.…

What if I completely changed everything? A subject without lectures or exams, where the right answer is not important and where students work with their hands. With this idea, Michiel Brentjens reformed the course Radioastronomy. His students are so enthusiastic about this approach that they nominated…

From children’s birthday parties to international ambassadors, the Old Observatory attracts a wide range of visitors. Student coordinator Sanne van Beek connects visitors and students, ensuring everyone — from five to sixty-five — learns something about the stars.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.