Carina Nebula as captured by the Jamess Webb Space Telescope — NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science

Astronomy News

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Barrier-breaking astronomer graces a U.S. quarter

Immortalized in a series honoring notable women, Vera Cooper Rubin, MS ’51, is the first Cornellian ever featured on a coin.

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Joseph Burns, emeritus professor, former dean of faculty, dies at 83

Joseph A. Burns, Ph.D. ’66, emeritus professor of engineering and astronomy, and a former vice provost and dean of the Cornell faculty, died Feb. 26 in Ithaca.

Concert celebrates the wonders of space March 2

In a musical journey through the cosmos, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of “Ex Terra, Ad Astra,” a new work commissioned especially for this year’s Young Person’s Concert.

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Gain knowledge from Big Red experts—without leaving home

The University’s online learning platform, eCornell, offers a dizzying variety of content; here’s a sampling, from AI to wines to real estate.

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Astronomer Anna Ho and team win Scialog award

Ho’s project will look at supermassive black holes residing in the centers of distant galaxies.

Orange red and white horizontal streaks of light under a dark blue sky, showing automobile traffic in motion at night

New Klarman Fellows to join the College of Arts and Sciences

Fellows will pursue research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

New telescope to set sail for monthlong journey to Chile

”This is a huge milestone for the project and we wish FYST bon voyage,” said Gordon Stacey, the project’s director and the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences.

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Astronomer granted 600,000 supercomputer hours by DOE

“We are going to run the largest simulations of the magnetized gas that pervades the space between stars, with the aim of understanding a crucial missing piece in our models for how stars and galaxies form."

See all Astronomy news

Together the Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science represent one of the world’s leading institutes for space science with over 110 active researchers. Research emphases include cosmology, solar system exploration, exoplanet science, and fundamental astrophysics. Graduate students, early career researchers and undergraduates, are actively engaged in current NASA missions, NSF consortia, and CCAT-Prime/FYST. The department and center also run an extensive and robust outreach program to the broader community.

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Department of Astronomy research

The Department of Astronomy is a leading center of astrophysics and planetary science research.

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Learn about the Carl Sagan Institute

A start stripping a planet's atmosphere. — This artist’s rendering shows a star stripping away a planet’s atmosphere. Image Credits: NASA/GSFC

Research spotlight

Universe Today reports "New research titled “Metal pollution in Sun-like stars from destruction of ultra-short-period planets” suggests that rocky planets are the source of these discrepancies. The authors are Christopher E. O’Connor and Dong Lai from Northwestern University and Cornell University, respectively." Read the full story here.

Learn more about astronomy research at Cornell.

Undergraduate program

The Astronomy Major at Cornell University is designed to be flexible so that it can be customized to the needs of each student.

Learn about the undergraduate program

Graduate program

Astronomy offers a wide variety of world-class research opportunities in astronomy, astrophysics and space science, with strong multidisciplinary connections, and a friendly and supportive atmosphere.

Explore the graduate program

Reaching beyond campus

In the spirit of the renowned Cornell Professor Carl Sagan, the Department of Astronomy reaches beyond campus in numerous ways. The Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility (SPIF) is a repository of spacecraft data, a facilitator of research, and a hub for PreK-12 education and public outreach activities. Ask an Astronomer has been answering questions from the curious since 1997. The Cornell Astronomical Society conducts viewing nights at the Fuertes Observatory and offers educational programing to the public.