University of Wisconsin–Madison

Astronomy

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) observed sand dunes in the north polar regions of Mars. — By Jim Lattis, Director of UW Space Place at the University of Wisconsin–Madison You may have heard that Mars reached opposition on 27 July 2018. But what does that mean? It means that Mars is bright and easy to find in the night sky. It’s called opposition because that’s when Mars is […]

Mars is at opposition, so what does that mean?

July 31, 2018 by Kelly April Tyrrell

It took only a few days of collecting X-rays from the distant Perseus galaxy cluster, 240 million light years away, for the Japanese Hitomi satellite observatory to conclude that the cluster contains proportions of elements that are nearly identical to our Sun, a new revelation that could tell us more […]

Resilience and discovery in decades-long satellite collaboration

February 1, 2018 by Mason Muerhoff

Planetary nebula NGC 2818, a gaseous shroud of a dying, sun-like star in the southern constellation Pyxis. — This guest post comes from Erika K. Carlson, a graduate student in the Department of Astronomy at UW–Madison studying how being in binary and multiple star systems affects the behavior and evolution of stars. She is passionate about sharing science and the Universe with others through outreach, teaching, and social […]

UW alum Anne Kinney begins math and physics position at ...

January 25, 2018 by Eric Hamilton

Atop Sterling Hall, mounted inside a metal-domed observatory, sits the telescope of Sherburne Burnham, a Chicago man who in the late 19th century developed a passion for peering through the lens of the nearly 8-foot-long telescope. In its day, the 6-inch-lensed Clark Refractor telescope traveled far and wide and was […]

The lens behind the man: UW–Madison professor details travels of ...

September 27, 2017 by Mason Muerhoff

We asked you on twitter for your eclipse questions, and user @_dbza_ asked us, “Since availability of glasses is a problem, can I use the phone camera to record a video of the eclipse? Would that damage the sensor?” The abridged version of the answer is yes, you’re probably safe […]

The sun will damage your eyes, but what about your ...

August 18, 2017 by Mason Muerhoff

Today (yesterday, as you read this) we departed Johannesburg, headed toward Madison by way of Atlanta. As I type this sentence, we are 7,371 miles away, six miles above the Earth, soon to be over ocean. Our South African journey culminated as it began, in the Cradle of Humankind, in pursuit of […]

Gifts and serendipity

July 25, 2017 by Kelly April Tyrrell

The dome of the Southern African Large Telescope against a blue sky — Hello from Day 8! After several days of immersing ourselves in anthropology with UW Professor Travis Pickering, his undergraduate field school students and his South African collaborators, on Sunday, July 16, Justin, Jeff and I gathered our belongings, ate a quick breakfast at our hotel in Johannesburg, and headed to […]

From anthropology to astronomy, stories from the road in South ...

July 19, 2017 by Kelly April Tyrrell

A team of three from University Communications at UW–Madison – videographer Justin Bomberg, photographer Jeff Miller, and me, science writer Kelly April Tyrrell – have traveled 8,779 miles from Madison, Wisconsin to Johannesburg, South Africa in order help tell important UW-focused stories about origins: from the origins of life on Earth, […]

Adventures in South Africa to follow ‘origins’ stories

July 12, 2017 by Kelly April Tyrrell

How do a bunch of Earth scientists celebrate Earth Day? The researchers and other staff at the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) and the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison arguably celebrate Earth Day every day by constantly advancing our knowledge of global […]

Earth Day, every day

April 21, 2017 by Eric Hamilton