Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Peter Webb is one of the four young Leiden Humanities researchers to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Webb will use the funding for his project EPIC PASTS: PRE-ISLAM THROUGH MUSLIM EYES, to reevaluate the ways in which Muslims in early Islam remembered…

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.

Glycoside hydrolases (glycosidases/GHs) are widely abundant enzymes in all kingdoms of life and are important biocatalysts that catalyze the hydrolysis of glycosidic linkages in oligo/polysaccharides, glycoproteins and glycolipids with tremendous efficiency

No joke: on 1 April, the antique Van de Wall telescope was relocated to the atrium of the Gorlaeus Building. Have you spotted it yet?

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…

For the first time in over half a century, one of oldest telescopes at the Leiden Observatory is getting a major improvement.

Director General of ESO, Tim de Zeeuw received President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria for a ceremony marking the first stone of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).

A permanent exhibition on the place of humans in the cosmos. This is something Franx wants to use his Spinoza Prize for. ‘So much progress has been made that we are still trying to define the questions. In finding the answers we are constantly coming up against surprises.’

Commercial MRI systems cost millions of euros to purchase and require highly trained technicians to operate. Prof. Andrew Webb works on accessible MRI techniques that offer new opportunities in both developed and developing countries. Webb is a professor at the Radiology Department of the LUMC and,…

The Leiden astronomer Huib van Langevelde) has been selected as the new director of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The EHT is a collaboration involving about 350 scientists from 18 countries. It combines the ALMA array in Chile with sub-millimeter telescopes around the world and published the first…

For the first time more than half century, one of oldest telescopes at Leiden Observatory is getting a major improvement.

Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded prestigious Vici grants the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced. The honoured applications are from researchers at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden Observatory, the LUMC and the Faculty of Archaeology.

On 18 June 2019, Neta Palkovitz Menashy defended her thesis 'Regulating a Revolution: Small Satellites and the Law of Outer Space'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon and Prof. dr. G. Molier.

Even with state-of-the-art technology, it is almost impossible to see: a cosmic neutrino. Yet scientists have managed to image this particle with a deep-sea telescope. And that could help to better understand our universe. Leiden particle physicists collaborated on this ambitious project, published…

Leiden scientists and companies receive 1.37 million euros to develop technology for the Einstein Telescope. This underground telescope will measure gravitational waves and must therefore be extremely sensitive. To that end, the consortium conducts research on the damping of vibrations at temperatures…

The International Space University is proud to announce that the 31st annual Space Studies Program (SSP) session will convene in the Netherlands during the summer of 2018.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO allocates nearly € 19.5 million to a Dutch cluster that contributes to the development of an X-ray camera and spectrograph for the new European space telescope Athena. Leiden Observatory is one of the members of the cluster.

Astronomers from, among others, SRON and Leiden Observatory have discovered long-sought intergalactic gas with ESA’s space telescope XMM-Newton. This gas is one of the pieces of the puzzle to map the total amount of ‘normal’ matter in the universe. The research will be published in Nature on 21 June…

The strangest things come out at night. This is the motto of the Leiden Museum Night due to take place on 28 May. Leiden University is once again playing a key part.

How do stars and galaxies form? What is dark matter? To answer these and other questions, we need increasingly large telescopes. And to build these, we need international partnerships. A series on the impact of collaboration.

Chapter by Fabio Cristiano and Emilio Distretti for the volume The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self, edited by Donatella Della Ratta, Geert Lovink, Teresa Numerico, and Peter Sarram for Palgrave Macmillan.

Scientists have detected a neutrino with the highest energy ever measured. Leiden physicists Maarten de Jong and Dorothea Samtleben were involved in this project, which was widely covered in newspapers and online media last week.

KM3NeT is selected as one of the ten top research facilities in NWO’s National Roadmap for Large-scale Research Infrastructure. Leiden physicist Dorothea Samtleben is the deputy program leader of Nikhef’s KM3NeT group.

Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern sky to hunt for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes. Leiden astronomer Rudolf le Poole is…

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.

This book explores the relationship between the production of new urban spaces and illiberal community-making in contemporary India. It is based on an ethnographic study in Noida, a city at the eastern fringe of the state of Uttar Pradesh, bordering national capital Delhi.

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…

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Through our research, we work towards a fundamental understanding of the world and people around us. We use that knowledge to make the world a safe, healthy, sustainable, prosperous and just place.

On 25 January 2024 H.J. Pak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This thesis describes the Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA (MASCARA), which consists of two small robotic telescope designed to detect exoplanets around the brightest stars in the sky.

For the first time in the Netherlands this summer: the Space Studies Programme - an international summer university for those who aspire to a space career. In parallel: the Sizzling Summer of Space, which is a public programme for both young and old.

For the first time, an international group of astronomers have seen the heat glow of two ice giant planets colliding. They could also observe the resultant dust cloud move in front of the parent star several years later. Led by Leiden astronomer Matthew Kenworthy, they monitored the star's brightness…

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a major health threat. Addressing this challenge requires among others the development of new antibacterial compounds. The research described in this thesis focuses on discovering novel antibiotics from soil bacteria, specifically Streptomyces and Paenibacillus.Despite…

An international team of astronomers that includes researchers from Leiden has discovered the most distant galaxy yet. The galaxy, called EGS8p7, is 13.23 billion light years away from Earth and already existed when the universe was only 550 million years old.

Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES).

PhD defence

Green infrastrucuture (GI) like urban farm and green roofs could provide many beneficial functions in cities. These include for example food production, flood prevention or increasing biodiversity. MultiGreen project aims at developing an integrated modelling tool to support…

Astronomers have used data from the European Gaia Space Telescope to discover 55 high-speed stars launched from the young star cluster R136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This increases tenfold the number of known “runaway stars” in this region. The team of astronomers,…

For years now, collaboration has been the operative word when it comes to successful space missions. But this can only be achieved with good agreements.

At the International Astronautical Congress in Washington DC last week, IIASL alumna Thea Dethlefsen (Denmark/Norway) won the I.H.Ph. Diederiks-Verschoor Award, given each year by the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) for the best paper by a young author.

This book contextualises case studies across a wide variety of languages and cultures, crystallising key interrelationships between linguistic standardisation and prescriptivism, and between ideas and practices. It focuses on different traditions of standardisation and prescription throughout the world…

Plant diversity is essential for us and our planet as it sustains the stability of our ecosystems, provides vital materials and food to us and supports many ecosystem services.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz, Co-Promotores: S. Ioppolo, H.M. Cuppen

On Monday 27 September 2010 Spinoza prize winners Naomi Ellemers, Ineke Sluiter, Marijn Franx (Leiden) and Piet Gros (Utrecht) announced their plans for their €2.5 million prize money. This was during the official ceremony in The Hague, at which the outgoing Secretary of State for Education, Culture…

The ongoing increase in antimicrobial resistance combined with the low discovery of novel antibiotics is a serious threat to our health care.