This article by Lisa Potter originally appeared in @TheU. The Milky Way has always seemed a little bit weird in comparison to other galaxies. For decades, research suggested that our galaxy was more compact than any other spiral galaxy. In a new study, astronomers reexamined how matter is distributed throughout the Milky Way by tracking […]
Read MoreThis article originally appeared on @THEU Omega Centauri is a spectacular collection of 10 million stars, visible as a smudge in the night sky from Southern latitudes. Through a small telescope, it looks no different from other so-called globular clusters; a spherical stellar collection so dense towards the center that it becomes impossible to distinguish individual […]
Read MoreThis article originally appeared in CoS “I think teaching people that it’s okay to need breaks, to not know what’s next, to give room to learn and change is the most important thing to build an accepting environment like that.” Transitioning from high school to college can be challenging in ideal circumstances but at the height […]
Read MoreThis article originally appeared in CoS The ALSAM Foundation has made a substantial gift toward the latest addition to the science campus at the University of Utah: the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building. The 100,000-square-foot building will include modern classrooms and instruction spaces, cutting-edge physics and atmospheric science research laboratories, and faculty and student spaces. Scientists […]
Read MoreThis article originally appeared in @THEU “Would you consider Tony Hawk a physicist?” “I would consider Tony Hawk a physicist. If nothing else, he’s an intuitive scientist, right?” It looks like magic. When skateboarders launch off the lip of a vert ramp to fly into flips and spins, it appears they’re defying gravity. In fact, these […]
Read MoreThis article originally appeared in @THEU MARRIOTT LIBRARY The J. Willard Marriott Library is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Alison Regan Library Thesis Award: Eliza Diggins, Savannah McDaniel and J. Clista Galecki. These students were chosen for their exceptional senior theses in the fields English, of physics and astronomy, and chemistry. Each […]
Read MorePublished on: August 26, 2024 Neutrino Oscillation Research Advances July 9, 2024 Above: A Layout of IceCube Lab depth compared to the height of the Eiffel Tower. In the world of particle physics, electrical charges define the terms. While electrons have a negative charge, the appropriately named “positron” has a positive charge. But then there […]
Read MoreThis Article originally appeared in @THEU Intro adapted from a Northwestern article written by Amanda Morris. In October 2022, an international team of researchers, including University of Utah astrophysicist Tanmoy Laskar, observed the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded, GRB 221009A. Now, physicists have confirmed that the phenomenon responsible for the historic burst—dubbed the B.O.A.T. (“brightest […]
Read MoreThis Article originally appeared in @THEU On April 9, 2024, a community of refugee students and their families, scientists, educators and policymakers celebrated an event three years in the making—the installation of five cosmic ray detectors atop the Department of Workforce Services Utah Refugee Center in downtown Salt Lake City. The detectors, which measure echoes […]
Read MoreOn behalf of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, I would like to thank all of you for making Giving day a big success this year! In particular I would like to thank those who participated in the giving day via donation, advertising, becoming a champion, or rallying support in other ways. This year we […]
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