September 2010: We hosted the STFC Introductory Summer school for new Ph.D students, please navigate to the summer school pages for more information.

9 June 2010: Five HST programs for the Warwick Astronomy & Astrophysics group. The results of the Cycle 18 competition for observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope were announced last night, and five Warwick-lead programs were approved, the largest number for any University in the UK. This is an extraordinary achievement, given that the orbit-oversubscription in this round of proposals was close to nine. Tom Marsh is leading a programme to establish the evolutionary history of a remarkable pair of white dwarfs that should not exist according to all current models of their formation. Boris Gänsicke is leading a programme to determine an accurate temperature and mass for a white dwarf thought to be the progeny of an intermediate-mass star that barely failed to undergo a core-collapse supernova, he is also leading a programme to investigate the frequency of remnants of planetery systems around white dwarfs. Andrew Levan is leading a programme to unveil the birthplace and origin of one of the most extreme, and highly magnetic objects known in the Universe, as well as a programme that will use the power of gamma-ray bursts as lighthouses to study distant galaxies in unprecedented detail.

1 May 2010: Faculty position in the Astronomy & Astrophysics group. As part of the Midlands Physics Alliance, which supports collaborative research and graduate teaching across the neighbouring universities of Birmingham, Nottingham and Warwick, we are expanding the Astronomy & Astrophysics group. We will appoint a faculty member at the Assistant Professor or, exceptionally, Associate Professor level (more details).

17 November 2009: Ticking Stellar Time Bomb Identified. Using adaptive optics technology, astronomers studied the first helium nova explosion on the surface of a white dwarf some 25,000 light-years away. The exquisite spatial resolution reveals an expanding shell which permits the determination of the distance to the object, while spectroscopy shows that there is no sign whatsoever for hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. See the ESO and Warwick press releases for more info, images and movies, and some coverage on the BBC.

13 November 2009: Warwick astronomers discover two white dwarfs with oxygen-rich atmospheres. These unusual abundances imply that the two stellar remnants most likely descend from relatively massive progenitors that just failed to collapse into neutron stars. Read the Warwick press release and the article in Science (or the open-access copy on arXiv).

29 October 2009: The most distant object in the Universe: The discovery of a gamma-ray burst from an era when the Universe was only 600 million years old has been reported in Nature today. This discovery dramatically increases the record for the most distant object from a redshift of z=6.96 to z=8.2. For more information see the Nature video.

27 August 2009: Reported in Nature this week; the WASP project discovers a planet that shouldn't exist! The planet is ten times heavier than Jupiter, but orbits its star in less than one Earth day. Strong tides should have caused the planet to spiral into its parent star. For more information please see the Warwick press release and Nature's editor's summary.

10 March 2009: Warwick undergraduate finds evidence for a lost population of planets. In a paper accepted for publication in the journal MNRAS, Tim Davis reports results from his final-year undergraduate research project suggesting that a large population of planets orbiting close to their parent stars have been evaporated to destruction by intense stellar X-ray emission. The work was supervised by Peter Wheatley of the Astronomy and Astrophysics group, and is the article is available as a preprint or directly from the journal.

19 September 2008: Warwick astronomers lift the mystery of a unique optical transient. An unusual optical transient was identified during the the Hubble Space Telescope Cluster Supernova Survey brightened by a factor 120, and faded again into oblivion, over the course of ~200 days, but its nature remained completely unknown. Warwick astronomy staff have shown that the spectrum of this transient is consistent with a cool, carbon rich photosphere at a redshift of ~0.14. In addition, they analysed XMM-Newton X-ray observations of the transient, showing that it was not only bright at optical wavelengths, but also a luminous high-energy source. The extragalctic nature of this event suggests that it may be a so far unknown type of supernova. For more information read the paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters or the news item in Nature.

10 April 2008: Hubble pinpoints the brightest explosion. Researchers working at the University of Warwick, with colleagues in Leicester University, ESA and NASA, have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to pin point what remains of what was the brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. It is 7.5 billion light-years away -- halfway back to the big bang, and was once as bright as 10 million galaxies. More information and images from NASA.

24 Dec 2007: TIME Magazine ranks new WASP planets in Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2007. In October the UK-led WASP project, including Warwick participation, announced the discovery of three new planets orbiting distant stars. This result has been rated by TIME Magazine in the Top 10 of Scientific Discoveries in 2007. For more information read the TIME article on WASP and the full list of Top 10 Scientific Discoveries. Also see the original STFC press release.

19 Dec 2007: Thousands sign Downing Street petition against planned cuts to funding of Astronomy and Particle Physics. In a matter of hours, thousands of shocked scientists and supporters today petitioned the Prime Minster to reverse the decision to cut vital UK contributions to Particle Physics and Astronomy. For more information see the petition webpage.

10 Dec 2007: Warwick astronomers contribute to largest digital survey of the Milky Way. The IPHAS consortium, led from the UK, with partners in Europe, USA, Australia, has released today the first comprehensive optical digital survey of our own Milky Way. Conducted by looking at light emitted by hydrogen gas, using the Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma, the survey contains stunning images of nebulae and stars. For more information see the STFC press release and the IPHAS webpage.

24 Aug 2007: Warwick astronomer selected by the Royal Society for MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme. STFC advanced fellow and assistant professor Danny Steeghs will be paired with Jeremy Wright, MP for Kenilworth and Rugby, as part of a Royal Society scheme aiming to "build bridges between some of the best research workers in the country and members of the UK parliament". Danny will spend a week in Westminster, followed by reciprocal visits to the University and constituency office. Full details of the scheme are available from the Royal Society.

26 Apr 2007: Warwick astronomers work with undergraduate student to measure the gravitational fields of extra-solar planets. In a paper accepted for publication in the journal MNRAS, John Taylor and Peter Wheatley worked with Giles Sans, a Warwick MPhys project student, to develop a new method for determining the surface gravities of transiting planets. They found that giant planets orbiting close to their stars have weaker surface gravity than Jupiter. The method is much more precise than previous methods and also does not depend on assumptions about the nature of the parent star. A pre-print of the paper can be viewed on astro-ph.

22 Dec 2006: Published in Science: Warwick astronomers discover a disc of metal-rich gas orbiting a white dwarf star. The disc probably orginates from a disrupted asteroid in a planetary system. Further details...

8 Dec 2006: Published in Science: Warwick astronomers use ULTRACAM observations to confirm for the first time the existence of brown dwarf donor stars in cataclysmic variables. Further details...

8 Dec 2006: We are pleased to announce that Danny Steeghs will be joining our group as assistant professor from April 2007.

17 Oct 2006: We are pleased to announce that Andrew Levan will be joining our group as assistant professor from Jan 2007.

12 Oct 2006: Congratulations to Amornrat Aungwerojwit on winning the Anglo-Thai Society Annual Award for Educational Excellence in Science & Medicine.

26 Sept 2006: SuperWASP discovers two transiting extra-solar planets