Astrophysics

Neutron stars are one of the densest objects found anywhere in the Universe. Scientists still do not understand what exactly they are made from. A new piece of the puzzle, constraining the range of possibilities, has been discovered by a pair of scholars at IAS.

"Widely separated binary systems take more than a thousand years to complete a single orbit, making it challenging to measure the eccentricity of an individual system. Instead, Hsiang-Chih Hwang used a statistical technique to study nearly a million binary systems at once."

Past Member Roger Ulrich (1975) has been named a winner of the 2022 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. He is cited, along with Conny Aerts and Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, for “pioneering work and leadership in the development of helioseismology and asteroseismology.”

James Stone, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in recognition of advancements in original research. 

Bart Ripperda, incoming Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has been named an Einstein Fellow of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). His proposed project is titled Multiwavelength Flares in the High-Energy Universe.

Helmer Herman Koppelman, past Member (2020–21) in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a 2022 MERAC Prize from the European Astronomical Society for his work in theoretical astrophysics, an exceptional honor for early-career scholars.

""Don’t let fear of getting sucked into a black hole keep you up at night, says Lia Medeiros, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study; you’d have to get really close for that to happen."

The Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) orbital X-ray observatory and its associated institutions and industrial partners received the 2021 Marcel Grossmann Institutional Award. The international collaboration is cited for the following achievements:

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The most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute.