An artist's concept of a highly magnetized neutron star. According to current theory, axions would be created in the hot interior of the neutron star. UC Berkeley astrophysicists say that the strong magnetic field of the star will transform these axions into gamma rays that can be detected from Earth, pinpointing the mass of the axion. Image: Casey Reed, courtesy of Penn State;...
The purple and white emissions at the top are referred to as "Steve," while the green emissions are called "picket fence." The rare phenomena, which are distinct from the typical aurora, often occur together and may be caused by similar conditions at the edge of space. The photo was taken looking south over Berg Lake toward Mt. Robson in the Canadian...
Jonathan Arons earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard in 1970. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton University Observatory in 1970-71, and at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1971-72. He joined the Astronomy Department at UC Berkeley in 1972, and the Physics Department in 1980. Fellowships and honors include: Woodrow Wilson and Danforth Graduate Fellowships, 1965-70; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1980; Miller Professorships, 1985-86 and 2002-03; elected as an APS Fellow in 1984. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Miller Institute and as Director of the Theoretical...
The Pinwheel Galaxy, or Messier 101, on May 21, 2023, four days after the light from the supernova 2023ixf reached Earth.
Alex Filippenko is the kind of guy who brings a telescope to a party. True to form, at a soiree on May 18 this year, he wowed his hosts with images of star clusters and colorful galaxies — including the dramatic spiral Pinwheel Galaxy — and snapped...
Seen from Earth, the giant elliptical galaxy M87 is just a two-dimensional blob, though one that appears perfectly symmetrical and thus a favored target of amateur astronomers. Yet, a new, highly detailed analysis of the motion of stars around its central supermassive black hole — the first black hole to be imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope...
Judy Chandler Webb Professor of Astronomy, Physics
C-P Ma received both her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2002, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and an Assistant and Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, where she won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Ma is an avid violin player and was an exchange student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston while studying cosmic strings and theoretical cosmology at MIT. She was the first prize...
