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Stuck at home with little to do? Don’t worry, because we have the perfect space related activities you can do from home, alone or with your family, in Dutch or English.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Franx, Co-Promotor: Rychard Bouwens

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Franx & Prof.dr. P.G. van Dokkum (Yale University)

Any questions about the 444 celebrations? Please get in touch!

On 26 October, Leiden University held its first online signing ceremony, signing an agreement with China’s top university Tsinghua to establish a joint PhD programme to co-foster young researchers in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics.

‘We intend to use the arrival of SRON in South Holland to give a serious impetus to research and activities related to space travel and astronomy in the broadest sense of the word.' These were the words of Rector Carel Stolker of Leiden University at the ceremony where the first pile of the new SRON…

Do you have any questions about the role of the University in Leiden2022?

Do you have a question about the new Gorlaeus Building?

Leiden astronomers and ecologists are developing an instrument that lets people measure the quality of surface water with a smartphone.This international citizen science project, MONOCLE, is a collaboration between scientists and local people in Tanzania, Brazil and four European countries.

Kyra van der Moezel defended her thesis on 7 September 2016.

Promotor: H.J.A. Röttgering, Co-promotor: M. Haverkorn

I have studied the hot, diffuse gas around and between galaxies. Specifically, I have used the EAGLE numerical simulations of galaxy formation to predict the properties of this gas, and I have used those properties to predict specific observables: soft X-ray absorption and emission lines.

This thesis explores the theoretical and observational properties of distant massive galaxies that harbour active black holes in their centres and shine brightly at radio wavelengths.

Promotor: J.S. Kaastra Co-promotor: E. Constantini

We have conducted a full spectral line survey of the 3-13 micron region of two massive protostars, AFGL 2591 and AFGL 2136, for the first time at high spectral resolution.

An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a highly luminous region at the center of a galaxy, powered by the accretion into a supermassive black hole and emitting energy from radio waves to gamma rays, often outshining the host galaxy.

Large areas of space are filled by molecular clouds that consist of gas and dust grains that are the remnants of dead stars. When these clouds start collapsing, the decreasing temperature and increasing density cause gas particles to start accreting onto dust grain surfaces.

Within the field of astronomy, understanding how galaxies grow and evolve from the Big Bang to the present day is a challenging and complex question.

One of the key quests in astronomy is to study the growth and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Radio observations provide a powerful means of studying the formation of stars and subsequent buildup of distant galaxies, in a way that is unbiased by the presence of dust.

The high velocity tail of the total velocity distribution of stars provides essential insight into fundamental properties of the Galaxy.

On the occasion of the Women & Girls in Science Day, BBC Science Focus Magazine highlighted 6 prominent female chemists. Among them is Leiden professor Ewine van Dishoeck: 'Astrochemist investigating the building blocks of life'.

General information

From now on, you can listen to the intriguing stories of our staff any time you wish! On this page you can find out more about the new podcast series of the faculty of Humanities.

Promotor: G.A. van der Marel, Co-Promotor: J.D.C. Codée

The Faculty of Science is housed in various buildings situated in the Bio Science Park Leiden.

Interested in working with the Dutch Extract Library?

A logical next step and a new challenge: Harold Linnartz is ready for his new position as Programme Director (PD) of the Leiden Observatory. He will follow up current PD Paul van der Werf on 1 October. 'The programme has grown tremendously. That will be a logistics tour de force.'

Forming at the nodes of the Cosmic Web and growing hierarchically via mass accretion, galaxy clusters are the largest virialized halos in our universe, composed of dark matter (DM; ≥85%), ionized hot plasma in the intracluster medium (ICM; ≥10-15%), and galaxies (≥1-5%).

Within the two-year Astronomy master’s programme, you can choose from seven specialisations, ranging from fundamental or applied astronomy research in cosmology, instrumentation or data science, to combinations of astronomy research with education, management or science communication.

Contact us about initial teacher education, educational research and teacher professional development

It has now been well established that shocks and turbulent motions in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) generated through cluster mergers can produce large-scale synchrotron emission.

We investigate the buildup of galaxies from various vantage points. The first two chapters focus on the stellar content of galaxies, especially the distribution of stellar masses at birth and potential variations therein in various galactic environments.

The Astronomy and Science Based Business specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes a one-year astronomy component (60 - 80 EC) and a business component in the second year (40 - 60 EC).

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!

The Astronomy and SCS specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and consists of an astronomy component (60 - 80 EC) and a science communication component (40 - 60 EC).

The Astronomy and Education specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes a one-year astronomy component and a teacher’s education component in the second year.