Recent news from The Johns Hopkins University
This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins
University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools,
the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to
the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins
communications offices.
Legendary investor and philanthropist William H. “Bill” Miller III has made a lead gift of $50 million in a combined $75 million philanthropic effort to support Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Miller’s $50 million commitment will fund endowed professorships, postdoctoral fellowships, and graduate research, and will provide ongoing support for research infrastructure. His gift also served as the impetus for two anonymous donors to support the department as well, expanding to $75 million the funding to advance key areas of physics research.
December 16, 2021 Tags: astronomy, Bill Miller, Johns Hopkins University, physics, William H. “Bill” Miller III, William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy
| Category: Fundraising, Homewood Campus News, Institutional News, Physics and Astronomy
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and other institutions have found that, on average, the temperature of galaxy clusters today is 4 million degrees Fahrenheit. That is 10 times hotter than 10 billion years ago, and four times hotter than the Sun’s outermost atmosphere called the corona. The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal.
November 10, 2020 Tags: astronomy, astrophysics, Brice Ménard, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Planck satellite, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the universe, universe expansion
| Category: Physics and Astronomy
The speed and distance at which planets orbit their respective blazing stars can determine each planet’s fate—whether the planet remains a longstanding part of its solar system or evaporates into the universe’s dark graveyard more quickly.
In their quest to learn more about far-away planets beyond our own solar system, astronomers discovered that a medium-sized planet roughly the size of Neptune, GJ 3470b, is evaporating at a rate 100 times faster than a previously discovered planet of similar size, GJ 436b.
December 13, 2018 Tags: astronomy, David Sing, exoplanets, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA, space, Space Telescope Science Institute
| Category: Physics and Astronomy
Charles L. Bennett, the Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Gilman Scholar in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, will receive the 2015 “Caterina Tomassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize” in June at the University of Roma “La Sapienz” in Italy.
May 12, 2015 Tags: astronomy, Charles Bennett, cosmic microwave background, early universe, Johns Hopkins University
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Uncategorized
Johns Hopkins University’s Marc Kamionkowski is a winner of the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, one of the top prizes in the field, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced today. The honor, which is awarded annually to outstanding mid-career scientists, carries a cash prize of $10,000 that will be split between Kamionkowski and his co-recipient, David Spergel of Princeton University.
January 16, 2015 Tags: astronomy, astrophysics, cosmic microwave background, Heineman Prize, Marc Kamionkowski
| Category: Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Technology
By analyzing the light of hundreds of thousands of celestial objects, Johns Hopkins astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have created a unique map of enigmatic molecules in our galaxy that are responsible for puzzling features in the light from stars.The map, which can be viewed at http://is.gd/dibmap , was unveiled Jan. 8 at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. “Seeing where these mysterious molecules are located is fascinating,” said Brice Ménard, a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University.
January 8, 2015 Tags: astronomy, Brice Ménard, diffuse interstellar bands, Milky Way, Sloan Digital Sky Survey
| Category: Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Technology
Adam Riess, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and a Nobel laureate, has been named a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the discovery of the acceleration of the universe. Riess received the award, the most lucrative academic prize in the world, at a ceremony in California on Sunday.
November 10, 2014 Tags: acceleration of the universe, Adam Riess, astronomy, Breakthrough Prize, dark energy, physics
| Category: Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Brice Ménard has been awarded a 2014 David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Ménard plans to use this fellowship to work on a new technique to estimate the distance of galaxies and then explore new directions of research.
October 15, 2014 Tags: astronomical datasets, astronomy, astrophysics, Packard Fellowship, Packard Foundation, sky surveys
| Category: Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Technology
By focusing on large, star-forming galaxies in the universe, researchers at Johns Hopkins University were able to measure its radiation leaks in an effort to better understand how the universe evolved as the first stars were formed.
October 9, 2014 Tags: astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, physics
| Category: Physics and Astronomy
An international team of sky scholars, including a key researcher from Johns Hopkins, has produced new maps of the material located between the stars in the Milky Way. The results should move astronomers closer to cracking a stardust puzzle that has vexed them for nearly a century.
August 14, 2014 Tags: astronomy, DIBs, diffuse interstellar bands, interstellar medium, Milky Way galaxy, Radical Velocity Experiment
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Technology
The Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy will host its 11th annual Physics Fair from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 26 to coincide with the yearly Spring Fair celebration on Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore.
April 18, 2014 Tags: astronomy, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Peter Armitage, physics, Physics Fair, Spring Fair
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Uncategorized
A team of scientists at The Johns Hopkins University has received a grant for $9.5 million over five years to develop, build and maintain large-scale data sets that will allow for greater access and better usability of the information for the science community.
October 30, 2013 Tags: astronomy, Big Data, computer science, Data Infrastructure Building Blocks, data sets, DIBBs, National Science Foundation, NSF, SDSS, SkyServer, Sloan Digital Sky Survey
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Technology, Uncategorized
It is a mystery that has stymied astrophysicists for decades: how do black holes produce so many high-power X-rays? In a new study, astrophysicists from The Johns Hopkins University, NASA and the Rochester Institute of Technology conducted research that bridges the gap between theory and observation by demonstrating that gas spiraling toward a black hole inevitably results in X-ray emissions.
June 14, 2013 Tags: astronomy, black holes, NASA, physics, supercomputing, X-rays
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Uncategorized
Johns Hopkins astrophysicists Brice Ménard and Charles L. Bennett have been appointed to the Euclid Consortium, the international team of scientists overseeing an ambitious space telescope project designed to probe the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter. NASA, a partner in the mission, recently announced their selection to the research team for Euclid.
February 12, 2013 Tags: astronomy, Brice Ménard, Charles Bennett, dark energy, dark matter, Euclid space telescope, European Space Agency, NASA
| Category: Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, Technology
A team of Johns Hopkins astrophysicists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected a distant Type Ia supernova, the farthest stellar explosion that can be used to measure the expansion rate of the universe. The supernova is the remnant of a star that exploded 9 billion years ago.
January 11, 2012 Tags: Adam Riess, astronomy, astrophysics, Hubble Space Telescope, Space Telescope Science Institute, supernovae
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Technology
Johns Hopkins astronomer Imants Platais and a colleague conducted a census of stars in the NGC 6791 star cluster and found it is an interesting hybrid that sheds new light on scientists’ understanding of how stars form and evolve. A paper on the study appeared in the May 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
June 1, 2011 Tags: astronomy, astrophysics, Center for Astrophysical Science, globular clusters, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Imants Platais, Johns Hopkins University, metallicity, Milky Way, stars
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy
A website that brings the universe into the homes and onto the computer screens of professional and amateur astronomers alike has won a Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, known as SPORE, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Built by a Johns Hopkins University team led by astrophysicist and computer scientist Alexander Szalay, the SkyServer search tool of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s database makes more than 350 million stars and galaxies available to students, teachers and the public. SkyServer’s Mapquest-like interface allows them to pan through the sky, zoom in and out, and click on stars and galaxies for more information.
August 26, 2010 Tags: AAAS, AAS, Alexander Szalay, astronomy, astrophysics, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Human Genome Project, Johns Hopkins University, Jordan Raddick, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, quasars, Science, Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, SkyServer, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, stars, universe
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
A team led by Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett has won a $5 million National Science Foundation grant – administered through the stimulus act – to build an instrument designed to probe what happened during the universe’s first trillionth of a second, when it suddenly grew from submicroscopic to astronomical size in far less than time than it takes to blink your eye.
March 15, 2010 Tags: ARRA, astronomy, astrophysics, Charles Bennett, CLASS, COBE, cosmic background radiation, cosmos, gravitational waves, inflation, job creation, Johns Hopkins, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, National Science Foundation, origins of the universe, space, stimulus act, telescope, WMAP
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Institutional News, Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy
